title: LGBT symbols

text: The female and male [[Gender symbol|gender symbols]] are derived from the [[astronomical symbols]] for the planets [[Venus]] and [[Mars]] respectively. Following [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaeus]], biologists use the planetary symbol for Venus to represent the [[Female|female sex]], and the planetary symbol for Mars to represent the [[Male|male sex]].


title: LGBT symbols

text: Two interlocking female symbols (⚢) represent a lesbian or the lesbian community, and two interlocking male symbols (⚣) a gay male or the gay male community. These symbols first appeared in the 1970s.


title: LGBT symbols

text: The combined male-female symbol (⚦) is used to represent [[androgyne]] or transgender people; and when additionally combined with the female (♀) and male (♂) symbols (⚧) it indicates gender inclusivity, though it is also used as a transgender symbol.


title: LGBT symbols

text: In 1970, graphic designer [[Tom Doerr]] selected the lower-case Greek letter [[Lambda#Lower-case letter λ|lambda]] (λ) to be the symbol of the New York chapter of the [[Gay Activists Alliance]]. The alliance's literature states that Doerr chose the symbol specifically for its denotative meaning in the context of chemistry and [[Lambda transition|physics]]: "a complete exchange of energy–that moment or span of time witness to absolute activity".


title: LGBT symbols

text: The lambda became associated with [[Gay Liberation]], and in December 1974, it was officially declared the international symbol for gay and lesbian rights by the [[Outright Scotland|International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland]]. The gay rights organization [[Lambda Legal]] and the American [[Lambda Literary Foundation]] derive their names from this symbol.


title: LGBT symbols

text: In [[:Category:19th century in England|19th-century England]], [[green]] indicated homosexual affiliations, as popularized by gay author [[Oscar Wilde]], who often wore a green [[carnation]] on his lapel. According to some interpretations, American poet [[Walt Whitman]] used the [[Acorus calamus|sweet flag]] plant to represent homoerotic male love because of its [[phallic]] connotations.]]


title: Hyatt

text: Hyatt Hotels Corporation, commonly known as Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, is an American multinational hospitality company headquartered in the Riverside Plaza area of Chicago that manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vacation properties. Hyatt Hotels & Resorts is one of the businesses managed by the Pritzker family.


title: Hyatt

text: The Hyatt Corporation owned by Isaiah Giles came into being upon purchase of the Hyatt House, at Los Angeles International Airport, on September 27, 1957. In 1969, Hyatt began expanding internationally. Hyatt has grown by developing new properties and through acquisitions, with the biggest growth coming from the acquisition of AmeriSuites (later rebranded Hyatt Place) in 2004, Summerfield Suites (later rebranded Hyatt House) in 2005, and Two Roads Hospitality in 2018.


title: Hyatt

text: In August 2021, Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) acquired Apple Leisure Group (ALG), a luxury resort-management services, travel and hospitality group, from affiliates of KKR and KSL Capital Partners for $2.7 billion in cash. ALG's hotel portfolio consists of over 33,000 rooms operating in 10 countries. The acquisition will extend Hyatt's brand footprint into 11 more European markets.


title: Hyatt

text: The first Hyatt House opened in 1954 by entrepreneurs Hyatt Robert von Dehn (1904–1973) and Jack Dyer Crouch (1915–1990) as a motel near Los Angeles International Airport. In 1957, the hotel was purchased by entrepreneur Jay Pritzker for $2.2 million. His younger brother, Donald Pritzker, also took on an important role in the company. Considering the growing use of air travel for business, the Pritzker brothers realized that locating a high quality hotel near a major airport was a valuable business strategy. Within two years, they opened Hyatt House motels near San Francisco International Airport and Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.


title: Hyatt

text: In 1967, the company opened their Regency Hyatt House in Atlanta, Georgia (today the Hyatt Regency Atlanta). The futuristic hotel was designed by Atlanta architect John Portman, who would go on to design many other hotels for the chain. It featured a massive indoor atrium, which soon became a distinctive feature of many Hyatt properties.


title: Hyatt

text: In 1968, Hyatt International was formed, to operate hotels outside the United States. It would soon become a separate company. In 1969, Hyatt International opened its first hotel, when it was awarded the management contract for the President Hotel in Hong Kong. The President Hotel was renamed the Hong Kong Hyatt Hotel (later known as the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong).


title: Hyatt

text: In 1972, Hyatt formed Elsinore Corporation, a subsidiary to operate the Four Queens Hotel and Casino and the Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa & Casino. Hyatt became a private company in 1979, when the Pritzkers bought the outstanding shares. Elsinore was spun off as a public company. The company opened the Playboy Hotel and Casino as a joint venture with Playboy Enterprises.


title: Hyatt

text: The Hyatt Regency brand is the oldest brand in the company, with the Grand Hyatt and Park Hyatt brands being introduced in 1980. Some of these are styled as "resort" properties, and may have spas or other recreational facilities. One of the first of these was the Hyatt Regency Maui in 1980.


title: Hyatt

text: The Pritzkers took Hyatt International private as well, in 1982. However, Hyatt and Hyatt International remained two separate companies until June 2004, when substantially all of the hospitality assets owned by the Pritzker family business interests, including Hyatt Corporation and Hyatt International Corporation, were consolidated under a single entity called Global Hyatt Corp. On June 30, 2009, Global Hyatt Corporation changed its name to Hyatt Hotels Corporation.


title: Hyatt

text: In December 2004, Hyatt Hotels Corporation acquired AmeriSuites, an upscale chain of all-suite business class hotels from affiliates of the Blackstone Group, a New York-based private equity investment firm. Blackstone had inherited AmeriSuites from its 2004 acquisition of Prime Hospitality. The AmeriSuites chain was rebranded and called Hyatt Place, a competitor to the limited-service products Marriott International's Courtyard by Marriott and Hilton Worldwide's Hilton Garden Inn.


title: Hyatt

text: In December 2005, Hyatt acquired limited service company Summerfield Suites from the Blackstone Group. Blackstone had inherited Summerfield Suites from its purchase of Wyndham International. In January 2012, Hyatt Summerfield Suites were rebranded as Hyatt House in 2012 to compete in the "upscale extended stay market" against Residence Inn, Homewood Suites, and Staybridge Suites.


title: Hyatt

text: Hyatt launched its first lifestyle brand, Andaz, in April 2007. Hindi for the word 'style', Andaz is positioned as a luxury brand, with the first hotel being a rebrand of the Great Eastern Hotel in London, followed by hotels in San Diego, West Hollywood, Shanghai and New York City.


title: Hyatt

text: In August 2009, it was reported that Hyatt Hotels Corporation filed plans to raise up to $1.15 billion in an initial share sale. That November Hyatt completed an initial public offering and began trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "H." According to the filing Mark S. Hoplamazian was to serve as CEO and Thomas Pritzker as Executive Chairman. The public offering was a result of the acrimonious breakup of the Pritzker family empire. Accused of looting family trusts, Thomas and cousins Penny and Nicholas took control of the family businesses when they and other family members were sued by cousin Liesel Pritzker, claiming fraud and seeking damages of over US$6 billion.


title: Hyatt

text: On September 1, 2011, Hyatt acquired Hotel Sierra, which had 18 properties in 10 states. Along with Hyatt Summerfield Suites hotels, several of these properties were rebranded as Hyatt house in January 2012.


title: Hyatt

text: In November 2013, Hyatt introduced their first all-inclusive resort brands, Hyatt Ziva and Hyatt Zilara, with the first resorts being opened in Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Rose Hall, Montego Bay, Jamaica.


title: Hyatt

text: On October 28, 2015, Hyatt announced that they were in advanced talks to acquire Starwood Hotels in a cash and stock transaction. The transaction was not completed, and Starwood was acquired by Marriott International instead.


title: Hyatt

text: In 2018, Hyatt saw expansion with the acquisition of Two Roads Hospitality. This added the Joie de Vivre, Destination, Alila, and Thompson hotel brands to the Hyatt portfolio, a growth of 85 hotels in 23 markets.


title: Hyatt

text: In March 2021, Hyatt announced the official opening of Hyatt's 1,000th hotel worldwide, Alila Napa Valley in St. Helena, California.


title: Hyatt

text: Hyatt-branded properties have traditionally catered to upscale or business customers; its properties were either full-service or boutique hotels. In 1980, Hyatt added the Grand Hyatt and Park Hyatt brands to its portfolio. In 1995, Hyatt entered the vacation ownership market. Hyatt introduced the Hyatt Place brand, designed as a limited service offering for business travelers, in 2006. Hyatt House was Hyatt's first select-service property, catering primarily to travelers with long-term stays and at a more economical price point. Since then, Hyatt has added a wide range of other brands, especially in the lifestyle and resort segments.


title: Hyatt

text: Hyatt categorizes its brands under three categories: timeless portfolio (containing Hyatt's classic brands), boundless portfolio (lifestyle brands) and independent collections (soft-branded independent properties). Two additional upscale lifestyle brands, tommie and Caption, have been announced and will be joining the portfolio once the first properties open.


title: Hyatt

text: In 2018, Hyatt began partnering with some properties in the SLH (Small Luxury Hotels of the World) chain, which allows World of Hyatt members to earn and redeem points during their stays at participating SLH properties.


title: Hyatt

text: In October 2018, Hyatt announced their purchase of Two Roads Hospitality, a lifestyle hotel management company, for a base purchase price of US$480 million, with Hyatt to take the management controls of 85 properties of Two Road's across eight countries. All the hotels had joined the World of Hyatt loyalty programme by 2019.


title: Hyatt

text: Hyatt operates a loyalty program called World of Hyatt, which replaced Gold Passport on March 1, 2017.


title: Hyatt

text: Hyatt's partnership with MGM Resorts International allows members of both companies' loyalty programs – World of Hyatt and Mlife, respectively – to "status match" (i.e., match their lower status in one of the programs to the higher tier achieved in the other), and then earn points and credits, as well as avail themselves of the perquisites and partnerships associated with the higher, matched status in both programs.


title: Hyatt

text: "Fortune" magazine ranked Hyatt #32 on its list of "America's Best Companies to Work For" in 2019, rising to #16 in 2021. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has awarded the company 100% in the HRC Equality Index for more than ten years, last in 2020.


title: Christmas truce

text: The Christmas truce (; ; ) was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of the First World War around Christmas 1914.


title: Christmas truce

text: The truce occurred five months after hostilities had begun. Lulls occurred in the fighting as armies ran out of men and munitions and commanders reconsidered their strategies following the stalemate of the Race to the Sea and the indecisive result of the First Battle of Ypres. In the week leading up to 25 December, French, German and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carol-singing. Men played games of football with one another, creating one of the most memorable images of the truce. Hostilities continued in some sectors, while in others the sides settled on little more than arrangements to recover bodies.


title: Christmas truce

text: The following year, a few units arranged ceasefires but the truces were not nearly as widespread as in 1914; this was, in part, due to strongly worded orders from commanders, prohibiting truces. Soldiers were no longer amenable to truce by 1916; the war had become increasingly bitter after the human losses suffered during the battles of 1915.


title: Christmas truce

text: The truces were not unique to the Christmas period and reflected a mood of "live and let live", where infantry close together would stop fighting and fraternise, engaging in conversation or bartering for cigarettes. In some sectors, there were occasional ceasefires to allow soldiers to go between the lines and recover wounded or dead comrades; in others, there was a tacit agreement not to shoot while men rested, exercised or worked in view of the enemy. The Christmas truces were particularly significant due to the number of men involved and the level of their participation—even in quiet sectors, dozens of men openly congregating in daylight was remarkable—and are often seen as a symbolic moment of peace and humanity amidst one of the most violent conflicts of human history.


title: Christmas truce

text: During the first eight weeks of World War I, French and British troops stopped the German attack through Belgium into France outside Paris at the First Battle of the Marne in early September 1914. The Germans fell back to the Aisne valley, where they dug in. In the First Battle of the Aisne, the Franco–British attacks were repulsed and both sides began digging trenches to economise on manpower and use the surplus to outflank, to the north, their opponents. In the Race to the Sea, the two sides made reciprocal outflanking manoeuvres and after several weeks, during which the British forces were withdrawn from the Aisne and sent north to Flanders, both sides ran out of room. By November, armies had built continuous lines of trenches running from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier.


title: Christmas truce

text: Before Christmas 1914, there were several peace initiatives. The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British women suffragettes at the end of 1914. Pope Benedict XV, on 7 December 1914, had begged for an official truce between the warring governments. He asked "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang", which was refused by both sides.


title: Christmas truce

text: Fraternisation—peaceful and sometimes friendly interactions between opposing forces—was a regular feature in quiet sectors of the Western Front. In some areas, both sides would refrain from aggressive behaviour, while in other cases it extended to regular conversation or even visits from one trench to another. On the Eastern Front, Fritz Kreisler reported incidents of spontaneous truces and fraternisation between the Austro-Hungarians and Russians in the first few weeks of the war.


title: Christmas truce

text: Truces between British and German units can be dated to early November 1914, around the time that the war of manoeuvre ended. Rations were brought up to the front line after dusk and soldiers on both sides noted a period of peace while they collected their food. By 1 December, a British soldier could record a friendly visit from a German sergeant one morning "to see how we were getting on". Relations between French and German units were generally more tense but the same phenomenon began to emerge. In early December, a German surgeon recorded a regular half-hourly truce each evening to recover dead soldiers for burial, during which French and German soldiers exchanged newspapers. This behaviour was often challenged by officers; lieutenant Charles de Gaulle wrote on 7 December of the "lamentable" desire of French infantrymen to leave the enemy in peace, while the commander of 10th Army, Victor d'Urbal, wrote of the "unfortunate consequences" when men "become familiar with their neighbours opposite". Other truces could be forced on both sides by bad weather, especially when trench lines flooded and these often lasted after the weather had cleared.


title: Christmas truce

text: The proximity of trench lines made it easy for soldiers to shout greetings to each other. This may have been the most common method of arranging informal truces in 1914. Men would frequently exchange news or greetings, helped by a common language; many German soldiers had lived in England, particularly London, and were familiar with the language and the society. Several British soldiers recorded instances of Germans asking about news from the football leagues, while other conversations could be as banal as discussions of the weather or as plaintive as messages for a sweetheart. One unusual phenomenon that grew in intensity was music; in peaceful sectors, it was not uncommon for units to sing in the evenings, sometimes deliberately with an eye towards entertaining or gently taunting their opposite numbers. This shaded gently into more festive activity; in early December, Sir Edward Hulse of the Scots Guards wrote that he was planning to organise a concert party for Christmas Day, which would "give the enemy every conceivable form of song in harmony" in response to frequent choruses of .


title: Christmas truce

text: Roughly 100,000 British and German troops were involved in the informal cessations of hostility along the Western Front. The Germans placed candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own.


title: Christmas truce

text: The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man's Land, where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco, alcohol and souvenirs, such as buttons and hats. The artillery in the region fell silent. The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently killed soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint services were held. In many sectors, the truce lasted through Christmas night, continuing until New Year's Day in others.


title: Christmas truce

text: On Christmas Day, Brigadier-General Walter Congreve, commander of the 18th Infantry Brigade, stationed near Neuve Chapelle, wrote a letter recalling the Germans declared a truce for the day. One of his men bravely lifted his head above the parapet and others from both sides walked onto no man's land. Officers and men shook hands and exchanged cigarettes and cigars, one of his captains "smoked a cigar with the best shot in the German army", the latter no more than 18 years old. Congreve admitted he was reluctant to witness the truce for fear of German snipers.


title: Christmas truce

text: Henry Williamson, a nineteen-year-old private in the London Rifle Brigade, wrote to his mother on Boxing Day:


title: Christmas truce

text: Captain Sir Edward Hulse reported how the first interpreter he met from the German lines was from Suffolk and had left his girlfriend and a 3.5 hp motorcycle. Hulse described a sing-song which "ended up with 'Auld lang syne' which we all, English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, Württenbergers, etc, joined in. It was absolutely astounding, and if I had seen it on a cinematograph film I should have sworn that it was faked!"


title: Christmas truce

text: Captain Robert Miles, King's Shropshire Light Infantry, who was attached to the Royal Irish Rifles recalled in an edited letter that was published in the "Daily Mail" and the "Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News" in January 1915, following his death in action on 30 December 1914:


title: Christmas truce

text: Of the Germans he wrote: "They are distinctly bored with the war... In fact, one of them wanted to know what on earth we were doing here fighting them." The truce in that sector continued into Boxing Day; he commented about the Germans, "The beggars simply disregard all our warnings to get down from off their parapet, so things are at a deadlock. We can't shoot them in cold blood... I cannot see how we can get them to return to business."


title: Christmas truce

text: On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (24 and 25 December) 1914, Alfred Anderson's unit of the 1st/5th Battalion of the Black Watch was billeted in a farmhouse away from the front line. In a later interview (2003), Anderson, the last known surviving Scottish veteran of the war, vividly recalled Christmas Day and said:


title: Christmas truce

text: A German Lieutenant, Johannes Niemann, wrote "grabbed my binoculars and looking cautiously over the parapet saw the incredible sight of our soldiers exchanging cigarettes, schnapps and chocolate with the enemy".


title: Christmas truce

text: General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, commander of the II Corps, issued orders forbidding friendly communication with the opposing German troops. Adolf Hitler, a corporal of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry, was also an opponent of the truce.


title: Christmas truce

text: In the Comines sector of the front there was an early fraternization between German and French soldiers in December 1914, during a short truce and there are at least two other testimonials from French soldiers, of similar behaviours in sectors where German and French companies opposed each other. Gervais Morillon wrote to his parents "The Boches waved a white flag and shouted 'Kamarades, Kamarades, rendez-vous'. When we didn't move they came towards us unarmed, led by an officer. Although we are not clean they are disgustingly filthy. I am telling you this but don't speak of it to anyone. We must not mention it even to other soldiers". Gustave Berthier wrote "On Christmas Day the Boches made a sign showing they wished to speak to us. They said they didn't want to shoot. ... They were tired of making war, they were married like me, they didn't have any differences with the French but with the English".


title: Christmas truce

text: On the Yser Front where German and Belgian troops faced each other in December 1914, a truce was arranged at the request of Belgian soldiers who wished to send letters back to their families, over the German-occupied parts of Belgium.


title: Christmas truce

text: Many accounts of the truce involve one or more football matches played in no-man's land. This was mentioned in some of the earliest reports, with a letter written by a doctor attached to the Rifle Brigade, published in "The Times" on 1 January 1915, reporting "a football match... played between them and us in front of the trench". Similar stories have been told over the years, often naming units or the score. Some accounts of the game bring in elements of fiction by Robert Graves, a British poet and writer (and an officer on the front at the time) who reconstructed the encounter in a story published in 1962; in Graves's version, the score was 3–2 to the Germans.


title: Christmas truce

text: The truth of the accounts has been disputed by some historians. In 1984, Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton concluded that there were probably attempts to play organised matches which failed due to the state of the ground, but that the contemporary reports were either hearsay or refer to "kick-about" matches with "made-up footballs" such as a bully-beef tin. Chris Baker, former chairman of The Western Front Association and author of "The Truce: The Day the War Stopped", was also sceptical, but says that although there is little evidence, the most likely place that an organised match could have taken place was near the village of Messines: "There are two references to a game being played on the British side, but nothing from the Germans. If somebody one day found a letter from a German soldier who was in that area, then we would have something credible". Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxon Infantry Regiment said that the English "brought a soccer ball from their trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it was". In 2011 Mike Dash concluded that "there is plenty of evidence that football was played that Christmas Day—mostly by men of the same nationality but in at least three or four places between troops from the opposing armies".


title: Christmas truce

text: Many units were reported in contemporary accounts to have taken part in games: Dash listed the 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment pitched against "Scottish troops"; the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders against unidentified Germans (with the Scots reported to have won 4–1); the Royal Field Artillery against "Prussians and Hanovers" near Ypres and the Lancashire Fusiliers near Le Touquet, with the detail of a bully beef ration tin as the "ball". One recent writer has identified 29 reports of football, though does not give substantive details. Colonel J. E. B. Seely recorded in his diary for Christmas Day that he had been "Invited to football match between Saxons and English on New Year's Day", but this does not appear to have taken place.


title: Christmas truce

text: On the Eastern front the first move originated from Austro-Hungarian commanders, at some uncertain level of the military hierarchy. The Russians responded positively and soldiers eventually met in no man's land.


title: Christmas truce

text: The truces were not reported for a week, an unofficial press embargo broken by "The New York Times", published in the neutral United States, on 31 December. The British papers quickly followed, printing numerous first-hand accounts from soldiers in the field, taken from letters home to their families and editorials on "one of the greatest surprises of a surprising war". By 8 January pictures had made their way to the press and the "Mirror" and "Sketch" printed front-page photographs of British and German troops mingling and singing between the lines. The tone of the reporting was strongly positive, with the "Times" endorsing the "lack of malice" felt by both sides and the "Mirror" regretting that the "absurdity and the tragedy" would begin again. Author Denis Winter argues that then "the censor had intervened" to prevent information about the spontaneous ceasefire from reaching the public and that the real dimension of the truce "only really came out when Captain Chudleigh in the "Telegraph" wrote after the war."


title: Christmas truce

text: Coverage in Germany was less extensive than that of the British press, while in France, press censorship ensured that the only word that spread of the truce came from soldiers at the front or first-hand accounts told by wounded men in hospitals. The press was eventually forced to respond to the growing rumours by reprinting a government notice that fraternising with the enemy constituted treason. In early January an official statement on the truce was published, claiming it was restricted to the British sector of the front and amounted to little more than an exchange of songs which quickly degenerated into shooting.


title: Christmas truce

text: The press of neutral Italy published a few articles on the events of the truce, usually reporting the articles of the foreign press. On 30 December 1914, printed a report about a fraternization between the opposing trenches. The Florentine newspaper published a first-hand account about a football match played in the no man's land. In Italy, the lack of interest in the truce probably depended on the occurrence of other events, such as the Italian occupation of Vlorë, the debut of the Garibaldi Legion on the front of the Argonne and the earthquake in Avezzano.


title: Christmas truce

text: After 1914, sporadic attempts were made at seasonal truces; on the Western Front, for example, a German unit attempted to leave their trenches under a flag of truce on Easter Sunday 1915 but were warned off by the British opposite them. At Easter 1915 on the Eastern Front there were truces between Orthodox troops of opposing sides; the Bulgarian writer Yordan Yovkov, serving as an officer near the Greek border at the Mesta river, witnessed one. It inspired his short story "Holy Night", translated into English in 2013 by Krastu Banaev. In November, a Saxon unit briefly fraternised with a Liverpool battalion.


title: Christmas truce

text: In December 1915, there were orders by the Allied commanders to forestall any repeat of the previous Christmas truce. Units were encouraged to mount raids and harass the opposing line, whilst communicating with the enemy was discouraged by artillery barrages along the front line throughout the day; a small number of brief truces occurred despite the prohibition. On the German side, a general order from 29 December 1914 already forbade fraternisation with the enemy, warning German troops that "every approach to the enemy...will be punished as treason".


title: Christmas truce

text: Richard Schirrmann, who was in a German regiment holding a position on the Bernhardstein, one of the Vosges Mountains, wrote an account of events in December 1915, "When the Christmas bells sounded in the villages of the Vosges behind the lines... something fantastically unmilitary occurred. German and French troops spontaneously made peace and ceased hostilities; they visited each other through disused trench tunnels, and exchanged wine, cognac and cigarettes for Pumpernickel (Westphalian black bread), biscuits and ham. This suited them so well that they remained good friends even after Christmas was over". He was separated from the French troops by a narrow No Man's Land and described the landscape "Strewn with shattered trees, the ground ploughed up by shellfire, a wilderness of earth, tree-roots and tattered uniforms". Military discipline was soon restored but Schirrmann pondered over the incident and whether "thoughtful young people of all countries could be provided with suitable meeting places where they could get to know each other". He founded the German Youth Hostel Association in 1919.


title: Christmas truce

text: An account by Llewelyn Wyn Griffith, recorded that after a night of exchanging carols, dawn on Christmas Day saw a "rush of men from both sides... [and] a feverish exchange of souvenirs" before the men were quickly called back by their officers, with offers to hold a ceasefire for the day and to play a football match. It came to nothing, as the brigade commander threatened repercussions for lack of discipline and insisted on a resumption of firing in the afternoon. Another member of Griffith's battalion, Bertie Felstead, later recalled that one man had produced a football, resulting in "a free-for-all; there could have been 50 on each side", before they were ordered back. Another unnamed participant reported in a letter home: "The Germans seem to be very nice chaps, and said they were awfully sick of the war." In the evening, according to Robert Keating "The Germans were sending up star lights and singing – they stopped, so we cheered them & we began singing Land of Hope and Glory – Men of Harlech et cetera – we stopped and they cheered us. So we went on till the early hours of the morning".


title: Christmas truce

text: In an adjacent sector, a short truce to bury the dead between the lines led to repercussions; a company commander, Sir Iain Colquhoun of the Scots Guards, was court-martialled for defying standing orders to the contrary. While he was found guilty and reprimanded, the punishment was annulled by General Douglas Haig, and Colquhoun remained in his position; the official leniency may perhaps have been because his wife's uncle was H. H. Asquith, the Prime Minister.


title: Christmas truce

text: In December 1916 and 1917, German overtures to the British for truces were recorded without any success. In some French sectors, singing and an exchange of thrown gifts was occasionally recorded, though these may simply have reflected a seasonal extension of the live-and-let-live approach common in the trenches.


title: Christmas truce

text: On 24 May 1915, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and troops of the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli agreed to a 9-hour truce to retrieve and bury their dead, during which opposing troops "exchang(ed) smiles and cigarettes".


title: Christmas truce

text: Although the popular tendency has been to see the December 1914 Christmas Truces as unique and of romantic rather than political significance, they have also been interpreted as part of the widespread spirit of non-cooperation with the war. In his book on trench warfare, Tony Ashworth described the 'live and let live system'. Complicated local truces and agreements not to fire at each other were negotiated by men along the front throughout the war. These often began with agreement not to attack each other at tea, meal or washing times. In some places tacit agreements became so common that sections of the front would see few casualties for extended periods of time. This system, Ashworth argues, 'gave soldiers some control over the conditions of their existence'. The December 1914 Christmas Truces then can be seen as not unique, but as the most dramatic example of the spirit of non-cooperation with the war that included refusals to fight, unofficial truces, mutinies, strikes, and peace protests.


title: Christmas truce

text: A Christmas truce memorial was unveiled in Frelinghien, France, on 11 November 2008. At the spot where their regimental ancestors came out from their trenches to play football on Christmas Day 1914, men from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Welch Fusiliers played a football match with the German Battalion 371. The Germans won 2–1. On 12 December 2014, a memorial was unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, England by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and the England national football team manager Roy Hodgson. The "Football Remembers" memorial was designed by a ten-year-old schoolboy, Spencer Turner, after a UK-wide competition.


title: All the Money in the World

text: All the Money in the World is a 2017 biographical crime thriller film directed by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa. Based on John Pearson's 1995 book "Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty", it depicts the events surrounding the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III and the refusal of his grandfather, the multi-billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, to cooperate with the kidnappers' extortion demands. The film stars Michelle Williams as John Paul Getty III's mother, Christopher Plummer as Getty, and Mark Wahlberg as an adviser of the Getty family.


title: All the Money in the World

text: The principal photography began in March 2017 and was completed in August 2017 for a December 8, 2017, release. However, two months before the scheduled premiere, sexual misconduct allegations were made against Kevin Spacey, who originally portrayed Getty. By November, Plummer replaced Spacey and 22 scenes were reshot within eight days, one month prior to the rearranged release date at Christmas. It was later reported that Wahlberg had been paid $1.5 million to Williams's $1,000 for the reshoots, which sparked a debate on gender pay gap in Hollywood.


title: All the Money in the World

text: "All the Money in the World" premiered at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on December 18, 2017, followed by a United States theatrical release by TriStar Pictures on December 25, 2017. It received positive reviews, with praise for the performances, and grossed $57 million against a $50 million budget. Plummer received particular acclaim as Getty, earning him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.


title: All the Money in the World

text: In 1973, 16-year-old John Paul Getty III, grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, who is at that time the world's richest private citizen, is kidnapped in Rome by the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia-like organized crime group and secret society based in Calabria; a ransom of $17 million is demanded. His mother, Gail Harris, is unable to pay the ransom, as she rejected any alimony in exchange for full custody of her children when she divorced her husband, John Paul Getty Jr., in 1971 over his drug addiction. She travels to Getty's estate to beseech him to pay the ransom but, stating that it would encourage further kidnappings of his family members, he instead asks Fletcher Chace, a Getty Oil negotiator and former CIA operative, to investigate the case and secure Paul's release. The media picks up on the story, with many believing Gail to be rich herself and blaming her for the refusal to pay the ransom.


title: All the Money in the World

text: Paul is kept hostage in a remote location in Italy. Initially, his captors, particularly Cinquanta, are tolerant with him because his quiet and submissive demeanor causes them few problems. However, things grow increasingly tense as weeks go by without the ransom being paid, far longer than the captors anticipated. Arguments arise over whether to move Paul to a new location as winter is approaching and their hideout is not suitable for cold conditions. One of the kidnappers accidentally shows his face to Paul, and he considers killing Paul so he cannot be identified, but one of the other kidnappers kills him first. His burned and disfigured body is recovered in the river; investigators erroneously identify the body as Paul's, but Gail examines the body and refutes this.


title: All the Money in the World

text: Using the new lead of the body, Chace is able to pinpoint the hideout where Paul is being held. A raid is conducted with several kidnappers being killed, but Paul is no longer there; he has been sold to a new 'ndrina, or crime family. The new captors are much less patient with Paul and negotiate more aggressively with the Getty family to receive their payment. The kidnappers cut off one of Paul's ears and mail it to a major newspaper, claiming that they will continue mutilating him until the ransom is paid.


title: All the Money in the World

text: After repeated negotiations with Gail and Chace, and frustration from the captors at how long the process was taking, they lower the asking price to $4 million. Getty finally decides to contribute to the ransom, but only $1 million – this being the maximum amount that he can claim as tax-deductible. Moreover, he also will only do so if Gail signs a legal document waiving her parental access rights to Paul and her other children, giving them to Getty's son, her ex-husband. She reluctantly signs them. Intimidated by an exasperated Chace, Getty finally relents and agrees to pay the full ransom, also voiding the parental agreement with Gail. Gail and Chace take the money to Italy and follow specific instructions from the captors, leaving the money in a remote location and receiving orders to pick up Paul from a construction site. Based on Cinquanta's advice, Paul runs away from the site towards the town of Lauria, miles away. Meanwhile, the captors realize that Chace has broken his word and led the police to them; angry, they decide to find and kill Paul. Chace, Gail, and the captors arrive in Lauria to look for Paul. One of the kidnappers finds Paul first, but Cinquanta attacks the man in order to allow Paul to escape. With Paul wrapped tightly in Gail's arms, they escape the scene, and quickly smuggle Paul out of the country to safety.


title: All the Money in the World

text: When Getty dies in 1976, Gail is tasked with managing her children's inherited wealth until they are of age. The company was set up as a charitable trust, which meant that Getty's income was tax-free but also not spendable. He had invested much of it in paintings, sculptures and other artifacts, most of which now reside in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.


title: All the Money in the World

text: On March 13, 2017, it was reported that Ridley Scott was finalizing plans to direct the David Scarpa-scripted "All the Money in the World", a film about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III. Scott stated that he was attracted to the project because of Scarpa's script, adding "I just consumed it [...] I knew about the kidnapping, but this story was very, very provocative... Gail Getty was an exceptional character, and there are many facets of the man Getty that make him a really great study. There's this great dynamic. It was like a play, and not a movie."


title: All the Money in the World

text: Natalie Portman was pursued for the role of Gail Harris. On March 31, 2017, it was reported that Michelle Williams and Kevin Spacey were circling the roles of Harris and J. Paul Getty, respectively, while Mark Wahlberg was in talks for an unspecified role. On casting Spacey, Scott stated, "When I read the script, I started thinking, 'Who was Paul Getty?' In my mind, I saw Kevin Spacey. Kevin's a brilliant actor, but I've never worked with him, and I always knew I would have to have him portray Getty in this film [...] He was so obsessed with what he was doing [...] He wasn't giving people a second thought." In regard to Williams, Scott stated that, while she was not his first choice, "Michelle is very special as an actress, and I've never done anything with her before [...] The family was very private and there was very little footage of [Gail], but around the kidnapping, there was one particular interview she did that Michelle jumped at, and it shows Gail Getty being very assertive, very smart," both qualities Williams possessed. On May 2, Charlie Plummer joined the cast as John Paul Getty III. Timothy Hutton was added to the cast on June 16.


title: All the Money in the World

text: On May 31, 2017, it was reported that "All the Money in the World" had begun principal photography. Filming continued at Elveden Hall in west Suffolk for a week at the end of July. The aristocratic Grade II-listed stately home was used to represent a Moroccan palace in the filming of a series of flashback scenes. Spacey had worked for just 10 days on the film. The original production reportedly concluded in August.


title: All the Money in the World

text: In late October, numerous sexual misconduct allegations were made against Kevin Spacey. The film's premiere at the AFI Fest on November 16 was canceled, and its Academy Awards campaign—which was initially to center on Spacey's supporting role—was reworked.


title: All the Money in the World

text: On November 8, it was announced that although the film was otherwise ready for release, reshoots had been commissioned with Christopher Plummer replacing Spacey in the role of Getty. Despite his earlier statements to the contrary, Scott claimed that Plummer had been his original choice for the role, and that studio executives had persuaded him to cast the "bigger name" Spacey. Spacey still appears in one wide shot that would have been too expensive or complex to reshoot before the deadline; the scene features Getty disembarking from a train in the desert, but Spacey's face is not visible.


title: All the Money in the World

text: Reshoots with Plummer ran from November 20 to 29, with the first footage of Plummer in the role released the same day they concluded. Reshoots cost $10 million, bringing the film's final production budget to $50 million.


title: All the Money in the World

text: While it was initially reported that the actors had filmed the reshoots for free, it was later revealed that Wahlberg had in fact been paid $1.5 million while Williams received only $80 in per diems. Wahlberg's fee for the original shooting is alleged by "The Hollywood Reporter" to have been $5 million, while Williams' is reported to have been paid $625,000. "The New York Times" reported that Wahlberg was paid 80 percent less than his usual fee, and the $1.5 million he received for reshoots was in addition to this; "USA Today" reported that he was able to command the additional fee by exercising a clause in his contract that gave him approval over his co-stars, refusing to agree to Plummer's casting until he was guaranteed the extra pay. As a result of backlash brought on by the disparity in the actors' pay, Wahlberg announced he would donate the $1.5 million to the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund in Williams' name.


title: All the Money in the World

text: The film premiered at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California on December 18, 2017. In the United States, the film was originally slated for a release on December 22, 2017, but two weeks before its debut, it was pushed to December 25, to avoid competition with "". It was released on digital on March 27, 2018, and on DVD/Blu-ray on April 10, 2018.


title: All the Money in the World

text: "All the Money in the World" grossed $25.1 million in the United States and Canada and $31.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $56.9 million, against a production budget of $50 million.


title: All the Money in the World

text: On Christmas Day, the film's opening day, it grossed $2.6 million from 2,068 theaters. In its first full weekend the film made $5.4 million from 2,074 theaters, finishing 7th at the box office. In its second weekend the film made $3.6 million, dropping 36% and finishing 10th.


title: All the Money in the World

text: On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: All the Money in the World

text: Writing for "The Hollywood Reporter", Todd McCarthy called it "a terrifically dexterous and detailed thriller about the Italian mob's 1973 kidnapping for ransom of the grandson of the world's richest man, John Paul Getty [sic]." Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film three out of four stars, commending it as a whole despite criticizing the middle section as repetitive, and the character of J. Paul Getty being "repugnant" without proper context. He also argued that the director was impressive for his ability to create the film despite the Spacey controversy. Writing for "Vulture", David Edelstein gave a strong review for the performance of Michelle Williams in the film, praising "the marvelous performance of Michelle Williams as Gail. It's a real transformation."


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the group was its mid-1970s trio of Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann. In 1979, Johannes Schmoelling replaced Baumann. Since Froese's death in 2015, the group has been under the leadership of Thorsten Quaeschning (Froese's chosen successor and the current longest-serving band member, having joined in 2005). He was joined by violinist Hoshiko Yamane in 2011, Ulrich Schnauss in 2014 and Paul Frick in 2020.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Tangerine Dream are considered a pioneering act in electronica. Their work with the electronic music Ohr label produced albums that had a pivotal role in the development of the German musical scene known as kosmische Musik ("cosmic music"). Their "Virgin Years", so called because of their association with Virgin Records, produced albums that further explored synthesizers and sequencers, including the UK top 20 albums "Phaedra" (1974) and "Rubycon" (1975). The group also had a successful career composing film soundtracks, creating over 60 scores.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: From the late 1990s into the 2000s, Tangerine Dream continued to explore other styles of instrumental music as well as electronica. Their recorded output has been prolific, including over one hundred albums. Among other scoring projects, they helped create the soundtrack for the video game "Grand Theft Auto V". Their mid-1970s work has been profoundly influential in the development of electronic music styles such as new-age and electronic dance music.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: On 29 September 2017, the band released an all-new music studio album entitled "Quantum Gate". In December 2019, they released "Recurring Dreams", a compilation of new recordings of some of the band's classic compositions. On 26 November 2021, the band released an EP entitled "Probe 6–8" (including three tracks: "Raum", "Para Guy" and "Continuum"), whose concept was developed further on their following album "Raum", their latest studio album to date which was released on 25 February 2022.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Tangerine Dream existed as several short-lived incarnations, all of which included Froese, who teamed up with several musicians from West Berlin's underground music scene, including Steve Jolliffe, Sven-Åke Johansson, Klaus Schulze, and Conrad Schnitzler.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Froese's most notable association was his partnership with Christopher Franke. Franke joined Tangerine Dream in 1970 after serving time in the group Agitation Free, originally to replace Schulze as the drummer. Franke is credited with starting to use electronic sequencers, which were introduced on "Phaedra", a development that had not only a large impact on the group's music but to many electronic musicians to this day. Franke stayed with the group for 17 years, leaving in 1988 because of exhausting touring schedules, as well as creative differences with Froese.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Other long-term members of the group include Peter Baumann (1971–1977), who later went on to found the new-age label Private Music, to which the band was signed from 1988 to 1991; Johannes Schmoelling (1979–1985); Paul Haslinger (1986–1990); Froese's son Jerome Froese (1990–2006); Linda Spa (1990–1996, 2005–2014), a saxophonist & fluter player who appeared on numerous albums and concerts, contributing one track on "Goblins' Club"; and most recently Thorsten Quaeschning of Picture Palace Music (2005–present).


title: Tangerine Dream

text: A number of other members were also part of Tangerine Dream for shorter periods of time. Unlike session musicians, these players also contributed to compositions of the band during their tenures. Some of the more notable members are Steve Schroyder (organist, 1971–1972), Michael Hoenig (who replaced Baumann for a 1975 Australian tour and a London concert, included on "Bootleg Box Set Vol. 1"), Steve Jolliffe (wind instruments, keyboards and vocals on "Cyclone" and the following tour; he was also part of a short-lived 1969 line-up), Klaus Krüger (drummer on "Cyclone" and "Force Majeure") and Ralf Wadephul (in collaboration with Edgar Froese recorded album "Blue Dawn", but it was released only in 2006; also credited for one track on "Optical Race" (1988) and toured with the band in support of this album).


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Tangerine Dream was often joined on stage by Zlatko Perica or Gerald Gradwohl on guitars, and Emil Hachfeld on electronic drums. Jerome Froese left in 2006 after a concert at the Tempodrom in Berlin. Until late 2014, Tangerine Dream comprised Edgar Froese, as well as Thorsten Quaeschning, who first collaborated in the composition of "Jeanne d'Arc" (2005). For concerts and recordings, they were usually joined by Linda Spa on saxophone and flute, Iris Camaa on drums and percussion, and Bernhard Beibl on guitar. In 2011, electric violinist Hoshiko Yamane was added to the lineup and is featured on some of the most recent albums.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: In late 2014, Bernhard Beibl announced on his Facebook page that he would stop collaborating with Tangerine Dream. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that Tangerine Dream would no longer be touring with Linda Spa or Iris Camaa, but that Ulrich Schnauss had been brought into the fold. Edgar Froese's death in January 2015, however, left this a short-lived line-up.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Edgar Froese arrived in West Berlin in the mid-1960s to study art. His first band, the psychedelic rock-styled "The Ones", disbanded after releasing only one single. After The Ones, Froese experimented with musical ideas, playing smaller gigs with a variety of musicians. Most of these performances were in the famous Zodiak Free Arts Lab, although one grouping also had the distinction of being invited to play for the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. The music was partnered with literature, painting, early forms of multimedia, and more. It seemed as though only the most outlandish ideas attracted any attention, leading Froese to comment: "In the absurd often lies what is artistically possible." As members of the group came and went, the direction of the music continued to be inspired by the Surrealists, and the group came to be called by the surreal-sounding name of Tangerine Dream, inspired by mishearing the line "tangerine trees and marmalade skies" from the Beatles' track "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Froese was fascinated by technology and skilled in using it to create music. He built custom-made instruments and, wherever he went, collected sounds with tape recorders for use in constructing musical works later. His early work with tape loops and other repeating sounds was the obvious precursor to the emerging technology of the sequencer, which Tangerine Dream quickly adopted upon its arrival.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Released in 1970 by record label Ohr, the first Tangerine Dream album, "Electronic Meditation", was a tape-collage Krautrock piece, using the technology of the time rather than the synthesized music they later became famous for. The line-up for the album was Froese, Klaus Schulze, and Conrad Schnitzler. "Electronic Meditation" began the period known as the "Pink Years" (the Ohr logo was a pink ear). Subsequent albums, beginning with "Alpha Centauri", relied heavily on electronic instruments. The band's music during the early 1970s prominently featured organ from Steve Schroyder (on "Alpha Centauri") or Peter Baumann (on subsequent releases), commonly augmented by guitar from Froese and drums from Christopher Franke. They also started their heavy usage of the Mellotron during this period.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: The band's 1973 album "Atem" was named as one of British DJ John Peel's records of the year, and this attention helped Tangerine Dream to sign to the fledgling Virgin Records in the same year. Soon afterward they released the album "Phaedra", an eerie soundscape that unexpectedly reached No. 15 in the UK Albums Chart and became one of Virgin's first bona fide hits. "Phaedra" was one of the first commercial albums to feature sequencers and came to define much more than just the band's own sound. The creation of the album's title track was something of an accident: the band was experimenting in the studio with a recently acquired Moog synthesizer, and the tape happened to be rolling at the time. They kept the results and later added flute, bass guitar, and Mellotron performances. The Moog, like many other early synthesizers, was so sensitive to changes in temperature that its oscillators would drift badly in tuning as the equipment warmed up, and this drift can easily be heard on the final recording. This album marked the beginning of the period known as the 'Virgin Years'.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Their mid-1970s work has been profoundly influential in the development of electronic music styles such as new-age (although the band themselves disliked the term) and electronic dance music.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: In the 1980s, along with other electronic music pioneers such as Jean-Michel Jarre (with whom Edgar Froese collaborated on Jarre's 2015 album "") and Vangelis, the band were early adopters of the new digital technology, which revolutionized the sound of the synthesizer, although the group had been using digital equipment (in some shape or form) as early as the mid-1970s. Their technical competence and extensive experience in their early years with self-made instruments and unusual means of creating sounds meant that they were able to exploit this new technology to make music quite unlike anything heard before.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Tangerine Dream's earliest concerts were visually simple by modern standards, with three men sitting motionless for hours alongside massive electronic boxes festooned with patch cords and a few flashing lights. Some concerts were even performed in complete darkness, as happened during the performance at York Minster on 20 October 1975. As time went on and technology advanced, the concerts became much more elaborate, with visual effects, lighting, lasers, pyrotechnics, and projected images. By 1977 their North American tour featured full-scale Laserium effects.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Through the 1970s and 1980s, the band toured extensively. The concerts generally included large amounts of unreleased and improvised material and were consequently widely bootlegged. They were notorious for playing extremely loudly (reaching 134 dB in 1976) and for a long time. The band released recordings of a fair number of their concerts, and on some of these the band worked out material that would later form the backbone of their studio recordings. (For example, "Quichotte", re-released as "Pergamon", which documents a concert given in East Berlin shortly after Johannes Schmoelling joined the group, contains themes that would appear later on "Tangram".) An early example of this was the "Ricochet" album, a section of which was recorded during their 1975 tour but with a large amount of material recorded in the studio.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Most of Tangerine Dream's albums are entirely instrumental. Two earlier albums that prominently featured lyrics were "Cyclone" (1978) and "Tyger" (1987). While there were occasionally a few vocals on the band's other releases, such as the track "Kiew Mission" from 1981's "Exit" and "The Harbor" from 1987's "Shy People", the group only returned to featuring vocals on a larger scale in a musical trilogy based on Dante's "Divine Comedy". This was followed by a 2007 album "Madcap's Flaming Duty" and a 2010 cover collection "Under Cover – Chapter One".


title: Tangerine Dream

text: After their 1980 East Berlin gig, when they became one of the first major Western bands to perform in a communist country, Tangerine Dream released a double live album of one of their performances there, called "Poland", recorded during their tour in the winter at the end of 1983. With "Poland", the band moved to the Jive Electro label, marking the beginning of the "Blue Years".


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Throughout the 1980s, Tangerine Dream composed scores for more than 20 films. This had been an interest of Froese's since the late 1960s, when he scored an obscure Polish film, as well as appearing as an actor in several German underground films. He made the score for the experimental film "Never shoot the bathroom man", directed by Jürgen Polland. Many of the group's soundtracks were composed at least partially of reworked material from the band's studio albums or work that was in progress for upcoming albums; see, for example, the resemblance between the track "Igneous" on their soundtrack for "Thief" and the track "Thru Metamorphic Rocks" on their studio release "Force Majeure". Their first exposure on US television came when a track for the then in-progress album "Le Parc" was used as the theme for the television program "Street Hawk". Some of the more famous soundtracks have been "Sorcerer", "Thief", "Legend", "Risky Business", "The Keep", "Firestarter", "Flashpoint", "Heartbreakers", "Shy People" and "Near Dark".


title: Tangerine Dream

text: In 2016, Tangerine Dream released their own version of the theme music for the television series "Stranger Things". Tangerine Dream had inspired music for the series.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Several of the band's albums released during the 1990s were nominated for Grammy Awards. Since then, Tangerine Dream with Jerome Froese took a directional change away from the new-age leanings of those albums and toward an electronica style. After Jerome's departure, founder Edgar Froese steered the band in a direction somewhat reminiscent of material throughout their career.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: In later years, Tangerine Dream released albums in series. The "Dream Mixes" series began in 1995 with the last being released in 2010. The "Divine Comedy" series, based on the writings of Dante Alighieri, spanned 2002–2006. From 2007 to 2010, the "Five Atomic Seasons" were released. Most recently, the "Eastgate Sonic Poems" series, based on the works of famous poetic authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, began in 2011, with the last appearing in 2013. Also, beginning in 2007, Tangerine Dream released a number of EPs, referred to as "CupDiscs" by the band.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Edgar Froese also released a number of solo recordings, which are similar in style to Tangerine Dream's work. Jerome Froese released a number of singles as TDJ Rome, which are similar to his work within the "Dream Mixes" series. In 2005, he released his first solo album "Neptunes" under the name Jerome Froese. In 2006, Jerome left Tangerine Dream to concentrate on his solo career. His second solo album "Shiver Me Timbers" was released on 29 October 2007, and his third, "Far Side of the Face", was released in 2012. Beginning in 2011, Jerome Froese joined with former Tangerine Dream member Johannes Schmoelling and keyboardist Robert Waters to form the band Loom, which plays original material, as well as Tangerine Dream classics. Thorsten Quaeschning, leader of Picture Palace Music, was brought into Tangerine Dream in 2005 and contributed to most of the band's albums and CupDiscs since then.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: The group had recording contracts with Ohr, Virgin, Jive Electro, Private Music, and Miramar, and many of the minor soundtracks were released on Varèse Sarabande. In 1996, the band founded their own record label, TDI, and more recently, Eastgate. Subsequent albums are today generally not available in normal retail channels but are sold by mail-order or through online channels. The same applies to their Miramar releases, the rights to which the band bought back. Meanwhile, their Ohr and Jive Electro catalogs (known as the "Pink" and "Blue" Years) are currently owned by Esoteric Recordings.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: To celebrate their 40th anniversary (1967–2007), Tangerine Dream announced their only UK concert: at London Astoria on 20 April 2007. The band also played a totally free open-air concert in Eberswalde on 1 July 2007 and at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt on Main on 7 October 2007. 2008 saw the band in Eindhoven Netherlands playing at E-Day (an electronic music festival); later in the year they also played the Night of the Prog Festival in Loreley, Germany, as well as concerts at the Kentish Town Forum, in London on 1 November, at the Picture House, Edinburgh on 2 November, and their first live concert in the US for over a decade, at the UCLA Royce Hall, Los Angeles on 7 November.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: In 2009, the group announced that they would play a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, on 1 April 2010, titled the Zeitgeist concert, 35 years after their milestone concert there on 2 April 1975. The entire concert was released as a 3-CD live album on 7 July 2010.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Tangerine Dream embarked in spring and summer 2012 on a tour of Europe, Canada and the USA called "The Electric Mandarine Tour 2012": The 1st leg was a 5-date European tour, beginning on 10 April in Budapest (Hungary) via Padua (Italy), Milano (Italy), Zurich (Switzerland), and ending on 10 May in Berlin (Germany). The 2nd leg was a North-American tour which started with the Jazz Festival in Montréal (Canada) on 30 June, followed by a concert on 4 July at the Bluesfest in Ottawa (Canada) and continued as a 10-date US journey beginning in July in Boston, then New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and California. On 16 November 2014, Tangerine Dream performed in Melbourne, Australia, as part of Melbourne Music Week. They were the final shows with Froese. Tangerine Dream played two consecutive nights at the Union Chapel, Islington London on April 23 & 24 2018, the second supported by ex-Japan and Porcupine Tree musician Richard Barbieri. In October and November 2019, Tangerine Dream went on its 16 step "Random & Revision" Tour.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Edgar Froese died suddenly in Vienna on 20 January 2015 from a pulmonary embolism. On 6 April 2015, the group's remaining members (Quaeschning, Schnauss and Yamane) and Bianca Acquaye (Froese's widow), pledged to continue working together in an effort to fulfill Froese's vision for the group. However, ex-member Jerome Froese announced in his Facebook time line that in his opinion Tangerine Dream will not exist without his father.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: On 29 September 2017, Tangerine Dream released their new studio album entitled "Quantum Gate", celebrating the 50th anniversary of the band's foundation. The album is based on ideas and musical sketches by founder Edgar Froese and was completed by the remaining members of the band.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: On 31 January 2020, Tangerine Dream re-released their December 2019 album "Recurring Dreams", an 11-track collection of new recordings of some of the band's classic tracks, worldwide through Kscope. This was launched to coincide with the "Tangerine Dream: Zeitraffer" exhibition which opened on 17 January 2020 at London's Barbican and runs until 2 May 2020.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: On 9 June 2020, Paul Frick became the first member to join the group following Edgar's death after having made guest appearances the prior two years. Later on, the group started working on a new studio album entitled "Raum", featuring Froese's archival recordings in early 2022 via Kscope. Frick has the unique distinction of being the first addition to the group who did not ever personally meet Froese.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: It was announced on 22 June 2021 that Ulrich Schnauss has decided to stop performing live. Since then the band's official website lists him as a former member.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Tangerine Dream began as a surreal krautrock band, with each of the members contributing different musical influences and styles, before becoming a "revered progressive electronic act." Edgar Froese's guitar style was inspired by Jimi Hendrix, as well as the avant-garde composers Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen, while Christopher Franke contributed elements of György Ligeti and Terry Riley. Yes-like progressive rock influence was brought in by Steve Jolliffe on "Cyclone". The sample-based sound collages of Johannes Schmoelling drew their inspiration from a number of sources; one instance is Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians on parts of "Logos Live", and the track "Love on a Real Train" from the "Risky Business" soundtrack.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Classical music has had an influence on the sound of Tangerine Dream over the years. György Ligeti, Johann Sebastian Bach, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Maurice Ravel, and Arcangelo Corelli are clearly visible as dominant influences in the early albums. A Baroque sensibility sometimes informs the more coordinated sequencer patterns, which has its most direct expression in the La Folia section that comes at the very end of the title track of Force Majeure. In live performances, the piano solos often directly quoted from Romantic classical works for piano, such as the Beethoven and Mozart snippets in much of the late 1970s – early 1980s stage shows. In the bootleg recording of the Mannheim Mozartsaal concert of 1976 (Tangerine Tree volume 13), the first part of the first piece also clearly quotes from Franz Liszt's "Totentanz". The first phrase is played on a harpsichord synthesizer patch and is answered by the second half of the phrase in a flute voicing on a Mellotron. During the 1990s, many releases included recordings of classical compositions: Pictures at an Exhibition (on "Turn of the Tides"), Largo (from Xerxes) (on "Tyranny of Beauty"), Symphony in A Minor (by J. S. Bach), and Concerto in A Major / Adagio (by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) (both on "Ambient Monkeys").


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Since the 1990s, Tangerine Dream have also recorded cover versions of Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze" (first on "220 Volt Live") and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "Tomorrow Never Knows", and "Norwegian Wood".


title: Tangerine Dream

text: An infrequently recurring non-musical influence on Tangerine Dream, and Edgar Froese in particular, have been 12th–19th-century poets. This was first evident on the 1981 album "Exit", the track title ""Pilots of the Purple Twilight"" being a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Locksley Hall". Six years later, the album "Tyger" featured poems from William Blake set to music; and around the turn of the millennium, Edgar Froese started working on a musical trilogy based on Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy", completed in 2006. Most recently, the 2007 album "Madcap's Flaming Duty" features more poems set to music, some again from Blake but also e.g. Walt Whitman.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Pink Floyd were also an influence on Edgar Froese and Tangerine Dream, the band in its very early psychedelic rock band phase playing improvisations based on Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive". "Madcap's Flaming Duty" is dedicated to the memory of the late Syd Barrett. The title refers to Barrett's solo release "The Madcap Laughs".


title: Tangerine Dream

text: The band's influence can be felt in ambient artists such as Deepspace, The Future Sound of London, David Kristian, and Global Communication, as well as rock, pop, and dance artists such as Porcupine Tree, M83, DJ Shadow, Ulrich Schnauss, Cut Copy, and Kasabian. The band also clearly influenced 1990s and 2000s trance music, notably Chicane; both "Offshore" and "Sunstroke" borrow heavily from "Love on a Real Train" where lush soundscapes and synth pads are used along with repetitive synth sequences, much like in their 1975 releases "Rubycon" and "Ricochet", as well as some of their music from the early 1980s. The group have also been sampled countless times, more recently by Recoil on the album "SubHuman", by Sasha on "Involver", and on several Houzan Suzuki albums. Michael Jackson also cited Tangerine Dream as one of his favourite bands, especially their 1977 soundtrack for Sorcerer.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Bianca Froese-Acquaye, Edgar Froese's widow, has taken up the mantle of continuing the legacy of the group and works closely in a non-musical capacity with the remaining members.


title: Tangerine Dream

text: Tangerine Dream has released over one hundred albums (not counting compilations and fan releases) over the last five decades. A project to collect and release fan concert recordings, known as the Tangerine Tree, was active from 2002 to 2006.


title: Pericles

text: Pericles (; ; c. 495 – 429 BC) was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed by Thucydides, a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", but the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars or as late as the following century.


title: Pericles

text: Pericles promoted the arts and literature, and it is principally through his efforts that Athens acquired the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis, including the Parthenon. This project beautified and protected the city, exhibited its glory and gave work to its people. Pericles also fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics called him a populist. Pericles was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically-influential Alcmaeonid family. He, along with several members of his family, succumbed to the Plague of Athens in 429 BC, which weakened the city-state during a protracted conflict with Sparta.


title: Pericles

text: Pericles was born c. 495 BC, in Athens, Greece. He was the son of the politician Xanthippus, who, though ostracized in 485–484 BC, returned to Athens to command the Athenian contingent in the Greek victory at Mycale just five years later. Pericles' mother, Agariste, was a member of the powerful and controversial noble family of the Alcmaeonidae, and her familial connections played a crucial role in helping start Xanthippus' political career. Agariste was the great-granddaughter of the tyrant of Sicyon, Cleisthenes, and the niece of the Athenian reformer Cleisthenes.


title: Pericles

text: According to Herodotus and Plutarch, Agariste dreamed, a few nights before Pericles' birth, that she had borne a lion. Legends say that Philip II of Macedon had a similar dream before the birth of his son, Alexander the Great. One interpretation of the dream treats the lion as a traditional symbol of greatness, but the story may also allude to the unusually large size of Pericles' skull, which became a popular target of contemporary comedians (who called him "Squill-head", after the squill or sea-onion). Although Plutarch claims that this deformity was the reason that Pericles was always depicted wearing a helmet, this is not the case; the helmet was actually the symbol of his official rank as strategos (general).


title: Pericles

text: Pericles belonged to the tribe of Acamantis (). His early years were quiet; the introverted young Pericles avoided public appearances, instead preferring to devote his time to his studies.


title: Pericles

text: His family's nobility and wealth allowed him to fully pursue his inclination toward education. He learned music from the masters of the time (Damon or Pythocleides could have been his teacher) and he is considered to have been the first politician to attribute importance to philosophy. He enjoyed the company of the philosophers Protagoras, Zeno of Elea, and Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras, in particular, became a close friend and influenced him greatly.


title: Pericles

text: Pericles' manner of thought and rhetorical charisma may have possibly been in part products of Anaxagoras' emphasis on emotional calm in the face of trouble, and skepticism about divine phenomena. His proverbial calmness and self-control are also often regarded as products of Anaxagoras' influence.


title: Pericles

text: In the spring of 472 BC, Pericles presented "The Persians" of Aeschylus at the Greater Dionysia as a liturgy, demonstrating that he was one of the wealthier men of Athens. Simon Hornblower has argued that Pericles' selection of this play, which presents a nostalgic picture of Themistocles' famous victory at Salamis, shows that the young politician was supporting Themistocles against his political opponent Cimon, whose faction succeeded in having Themistocles ostracized shortly afterward.


title: Pericles

text: Plutarch says that Pericles stood first among the Athenians for forty years. If this was so, Pericles must have taken up a position of leadership by the early 460s BC in his early or mid-thirties. Throughout these years he endeavored to protect his privacy and to present himself as a model for his fellow citizens. For example, he would often avoid banquets, trying to be frugal.


title: Pericles

text: In 463 BC, Pericles was the leading prosecutor of Cimon, the leader of the conservative faction who was accused of neglecting Athens' vital interests in Macedon. Although Cimon was acquitted, this confrontation proved that Pericles' major political opponent was vulnerable.


title: Pericles

text: Around 461 BC, the leadership of the democratic party decided it was time to take aim at the Areopagus, a traditional council controlled by the Athenian aristocracy, which had once been the most powerful body in the state. The leader of the party and mentor of Pericles, Ephialtes, proposed a reduction of the Areopagus' powers. The Ecclesia (the Athenian Assembly) adopted Ephialtes' proposal without opposition. This reform signaled the beginning of a new era of "radical democracy".


title: Pericles

text: The democratic party gradually became dominant in Athenian politics, and Pericles seemed willing to follow a populist policy to cajole the public. According to Aristotle, Pericles' stance can be explained by the fact that his principal political opponent, Cimon, was both rich and generous, and was able to gain public favor by lavishly handing out portions of his sizable personal fortune. The historian Loren J. Samons II argues, however, that Pericles had enough resources to make a political mark by private means, had he so chosen.


title: Pericles

text: In 461 BC, Pericles achieved the political elimination of this opponent using ostracism. The accusation was that Cimon betrayed his city by aiding Sparta.


title: Pericles

text: After Cimon's ostracism, Pericles continued to promote a populist social policy. He first proposed a decree that permitted the poor to watch theatrical plays without paying, with the state covering the cost of their admission. With other decrees he lowered the property requirement for the archonship in 458–457 BC and bestowed generous wages on all citizens who served as jurymen in the Heliaia (the supreme court of Athens) some time just after 454 BC. His most controversial measure, however, was a law of 451 BC limiting Athenian citizenship to those of Athenian parentage on both sides.


title: Pericles

text: Such measures impelled Pericles' critics to hold him responsible for the gradual degeneration of the Athenian democracy. Constantine Paparrigopoulos, a major modern Greek historian, argues that Pericles sought for the expansion and stabilization of all democratic institutions. Accordingly, he enacted legislation granting the lower classes access to the political system and the public offices, from which they had previously been barred.


title: Pericles

text: According to Samons, Pericles believed that it was necessary to raise the "demos", in which he saw an untapped source of Athenian power and the crucial element of Athenian military dominance. (The fleet, backbone of Athenian power since the days of Themistocles, was manned almost entirely by members of the lower classes.)


title: Pericles

text: Cimon, in contrast, apparently believed that no further free space for democratic evolution existed. He was certain that democracy had reached its peak and Pericles' reforms were leading to the stalemate of populism. According to Paparrigopoulos, history vindicated Cimon, because Athens, after Pericles' death, sank into the abyss of political turmoil and demagogy. Paparrigopoulos maintains that an unprecedented regression descended upon the city, whose glory perished as a result of Pericles' populist policies.


title: Pericles

text: According to another historian, Justin Daniel King, radical democracy benefited people individually, but harmed the state. In contrast, Donald Kagan asserts that the democratic measures Pericles put into effect provided the basis for an unassailable political strength. After all, Cimon finally accepted the new democracy and did not oppose the citizenship law, after he returned from exile in 451 BC.


title: Pericles

text: Ephialtes' murder in 461 BC paved the way for Pericles to consolidate his authority. Without opposition after the expulsion of Cimon, the unchallengeable leader of the democratic party became the unchallengeable ruler of Athens. He remained in power until his death in 429 BC.


title: Pericles

text: Pericles made his first military excursions during the First Peloponnesian War, which was caused in part by Athens' alliance with Megara and Argos and the subsequent reaction of Sparta. In 454 BC he attacked Sicyon and Acarnania. He then unsuccessfully tried to conquer Oeniadea on the Corinthian gulf, before returning to Athens. In 451 BC, Cimon returned from exile and negotiated a five years' truce with Sparta after a proposal of Pericles, an event which indicates a shift in Pericles' political strategy. Pericles may have realized the importance of Cimon's contribution during the ongoing conflicts against the Peloponnesians and the Persians. Anthony J. Podlecki argues, however, that Pericles' alleged change of position was invented by ancient writers to support "a tendentious view of Pericles' shiftiness".


title: Pericles

text: Plutarch states that Cimon struck a power-sharing deal with his opponents, according to which Pericles would carry through the interior affairs and Cimon would be the leader of the Athenian army, campaigning abroad. If it were actually made, this bargain would constitute a concession on Pericles' part that he was not a great strategist. Kagan's view is that Cimon adapted himself to the new conditions and promoted a political marriage between Periclean liberals and Cimonian conservatives.


title: Pericles

text: In the mid-450s the Athenians launched an unsuccessful attempt to aid an Egyptian revolt against Persia, which led to a prolonged siege of a Persian fortress in the Nile Delta. The campaign culminated in disaster; the besieging force was defeated and destroyed. In 451–450 BC the Athenians sent troops to Cyprus. Cimon defeated the Persians in the Battle of Salamis-in-Cyprus, but died of disease in 449 BC. Pericles is said to have initiated both expeditions in Egypt and Cyprus, although some researchers, such as Karl Julius Beloch, argue that the dispatch of such a great fleet conforms with the spirit of Cimon's policy.


title: Pericles

text: Complicating the account of this period is the issue of the Peace of Callias, which allegedly ended hostilities between the Greeks and the Persians. The very existence of the treaty is hotly disputed, and its particulars and negotiation are ambiguous. Ernst Badian believes that a peace between Athens and Persia was first ratified in 463 BC (making the Athenian interventions in Egypt and Cyprus violations of the peace), and renegotiated at the conclusion of the campaign in Cyprus, taking force again by 449–448 BC.


title: Pericles

text: John Fine, in contrast, suggests that the first peace between Athens and Persia was concluded in 450–449 BC, due to Pericles' calculation that ongoing conflict with Persia was undermining Athens' ability to spread its influence in Greece and the Aegean. Kagan believes that Pericles used Callias, a brother-in-law of Cimon, as a symbol of unity and employed him several times to negotiate important agreements.


title: Pericles

text: In the spring of 449 BC, Pericles proposed the Congress Decree, which led to a meeting ("Congress") of all Greek states to consider the question of rebuilding the temples destroyed by the Persians. The Congress failed because of Sparta's stance, but Pericles' intentions remain unclear. Some historians think that he wanted to prompt a confederation with the participation of all the Greek cities; others think he wanted to assert Athenian pre-eminence. According to the historian Terry Buckley the objective of the Congress Decree was a new mandate for the Delian League and for the collection of "phoros" (taxes).


title: Pericles

text: During the Second Sacred War Pericles led the Athenian army against Delphi and reinstated Phocis in its sovereign rights on the oracle. In 447 BC Pericles engaged in his most admired excursion, the expulsion of barbarians from the Thracian peninsula of Gallipoli, to establish Athenian colonists in the region. At this time, however, Athens was seriously challenged by a number of revolts among its subjects. In 447 BC the oligarchs of Thebes conspired against the democratic faction. The Athenians demanded their immediate surrender, but after the Battle of Coronea, Pericles was forced to concede the loss of Boeotia to recover the prisoners taken in that battle. With Boeotia in hostile hands, Phocis and Locris became untenable and quickly fell under the control of hostile oligarchs.


title: Pericles

text: In 446 BC, a more dangerous uprising erupted. Euboea and Megara revolted. Pericles crossed over to Euboea with his troops, but was forced to return when the Spartan army invaded Attica. Through bribery and negotiations, Pericles defused the imminent threat, and the Spartans returned home. When Pericles was later audited for the handling of public money, an expenditure of 10 talents was not sufficiently justified, since the official documents just referred that the money was spent for a "very serious purpose". Nonetheless, the "serious purpose" (namely the bribery) was so obvious to the auditors that they approved the expenditure without official meddling and without even investigating the mystery.


title: Pericles

text: After the Spartan threat had been removed, Pericles crossed back to Euboea to crush the revolt there. He then punished the landowners of Chalcis, who lost their properties. The residents of Histiaea, meanwhile, who had butchered the crew of an Athenian trireme, were uprooted and replaced by 2,000 Athenian settlers. The crisis was brought to an official end by the Thirty Years' Peace (winter of 446–445 BC), in which Athens relinquished most of the possessions and interests on the Greek mainland which it had acquired since 460 BC, and both Athens and Sparta agreed not to attempt to win over the other state's allies.


title: Pericles

text: In 444 BC, the conservative and the democratic factions confronted each other in a fierce struggle. The ambitious new leader of the conservatives, Thucydides (not to be confused with the historian of the same name), accused Pericles of profligacy, criticizing the way he spent the money for the ongoing building plan. Thucydides initially managed to incite the passions of the ecclesia regarding these charges in his favor. However, when Pericles took the floor, his resolute arguments put Thucydides and the conservatives firmly on the defensive. Finally, Pericles proposed to reimburse the city for all questionable expenses from his private property, with the proviso that he would make the inscriptions of dedication in his own name. His stance was greeted with applause, and Thucydides was soundly, if unexpectedly, defeated. In 442 BC, the Athenian public voted to ostracize Thucydides from the city for 10 years and Pericles was once again the unchallenged ruler of the Athenian political arena.


title: Pericles

text: Pericles wanted to stabilize Athens' dominance over its alliance and to enforce its pre-eminence in Greece. The process by which the Delian League transformed into an Athenian empire is generally considered to have begun well before Pericles' time, as various allies in the league chose to pay tribute to Athens instead of manning ships for the league's fleet, but the transformation was speeded and brought to its conclusion by Pericles.


title: Pericles

text: The final steps in the shift to empire may have been triggered by Athens' defeat in Egypt, which challenged the city's dominance in the Aegean and led to the revolt of several allies, such as Miletus and Erythrae. Either because of a genuine fear for its safety after the defeat in Egypt and the revolts of the allies, or as a pretext to gain control of the League's finances, Athens transferred the treasury of the alliance from Delos to Athens in 454–453 BC.


title: Pericles

text: By 450–449 BC the revolts in Miletus and Erythrae were quelled and Athens restored its rule over its allies. Around 447 BC Clearchus proposed the Coinage Decree, which imposed Athenian silver coinage, weights and measures on all of the allies. According to one of the decree's most stringent provisions, surplus from a minting operation was to go into a special fund, and anyone proposing to use it otherwise was subject to the death penalty.


title: Pericles

text: It was from the alliance's treasury that Pericles drew the funds necessary to enable his ambitious building plan, centered on the "Periclean Acropolis", which included the Propylaea, the Parthenon and the golden statue of Athena, sculpted by Pericles' friend, Phidias. In 449 BC Pericles proposed a decree allowing the use of 9,000 talents to finance the major rebuilding program of Athenian temples. Angelos Vlachos, a Greek Academician, points out the use of the alliance's treasury, initiated and executed by Pericles, as one of the largest embezzlements in human history; this misappropriation financed, however, some of the most marvellous artistic creations of the ancient world.


title: Pericles

text: The Samian War was one of the last significant military events before the Peloponnesian War. After Thucydides' ostracism, Pericles was re-elected yearly to the generalship, the only office he ever officially occupied, although his influence was so great as to make him the "de facto" ruler of the state. In 440 BC Samos went to war against Miletus over control of Priene, an ancient city of Ionia on the foot-hills of Mycale. Worsted in the war, the Milesians came to Athens to plead their case against the Samians.


title: Pericles

text: When the Athenians ordered the two sides to stop fighting and submit the case to arbitration in Athens, the Samians refused. In response, Pericles passed a decree dispatching an expedition to Samos, "alleging against its people that, although they were ordered to break off their war against the Milesians, they were not complying".


title: Pericles

text: In a naval battle the Athenians led by Pericles and nine other generals defeated the forces of Samos and imposed on the island an Athenian administration. When the Samians revolted against Athenian rule, Pericles compelled the rebels to capitulate after a tough siege of eight months, which resulted in substantial discontent among the Athenian sailors. Pericles then quelled a revolt in Byzantium and, when he returned to Athens, gave a funeral oration to honor the soldiers who died in the expedition.


title: Pericles

text: Between 438 and 436 BC Pericles led Athens' fleet in Pontus and established friendly relations with the Greek cities of the region. Pericles focused also on internal projects, such as the fortification of Athens (the building of the "middle wall" about 440 BC), and on the creation of new cleruchies, such as Andros, Naxos and Thurii (444 BC) as well as Amphipolis (437–436 BC).


title: Pericles

text: Pericles and his friends were never immune from attack, as preeminence in democratic Athens was not equivalent to absolute rule. Just before the eruption of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles and two of his closest associates, Phidias and his companion, Aspasia, faced a series of personal and judicial attacks.


title: Pericles

text: Phidias, who had been in charge of all building projects, was first accused of embezzling gold meant for the statue of Athena and then of impiety, because, when he wrought the battle of the Amazons on the shield of Athena, he carved out a figure that suggested himself as a bald old man, and also inserted a very fine likeness of Pericles fighting with an Amazon.


title: Pericles

text: Aspasia, who was noted for her ability as a conversationalist and adviser, was accused of corrupting the women of Athens to satisfy Pericles' perversions. The accusations against her were probably nothing more than unproven slanders, but the whole experience was very bitter for Pericles. Although Aspasia was acquitted thanks to a rare emotional outburst of Pericles, his friend Phidias died in prison according to Plutarch; however, he is also credited with the later statue of Zeus at Olympia, therefore this is debated, and another friend of his, Anaxagoras, was attacked by the ecclesia for his religious beliefs.


title: Pericles

text: Beyond these initial prosecutions, the ecclesia attacked Pericles himself by asking him to justify his ostensible profligacy with, and maladministration of, public money. According to Plutarch, Pericles was so afraid of the oncoming trial that he did not let the Athenians yield to the Lacedaemonians. Beloch also believes that Pericles deliberately brought on the war to protect his political position at home. Thus, at the start of the Peloponnesian War, Athens found itself in the awkward position of entrusting its future to a leader whose pre-eminence had just been seriously shaken for the first time in over a decade.


title: Pericles

text: The causes of the Peloponnesian War have been much debated, but many ancient historians lay the blame on Pericles and Athens. Plutarch seems to believe that Pericles and the Athenians incited the war, scrambling to implement their belligerent tactics "with a sort of arrogance and a love of strife". Thucydides hints at the same thing, believing the reason for the war was Sparta's fear of Athenian power and growth. However, as he is generally regarded as an admirer of Pericles, Thucydides has been criticized for bias against Sparta.


title: Pericles

text: Pericles was convinced that the war against Sparta, which could not conceal its envy of Athens' pre-eminence, was inevitable if unfortunate. Therefore, he did not hesitate to send troops to Corcyra to reinforce the Corcyraean fleet, which was fighting against Corinth. In 433 BC the enemy fleets confronted each other at the Battle of Sybota and a year later the Athenians fought Corinthian colonists at the Battle of Potidaea; these two events contributed greatly to Corinth's lasting hatred of Athens. During the same period, Pericles proposed the Megarian decree, which resembled a modern trade embargo. According to the provisions of the decree, Megarian merchants were excluded from the market of Athens and the ports in its empire. This ban strangled the Megarian economy and strained the fragile peace between Athens and Sparta, which was allied with Megara. According to George Cawkwell, a praelector in ancient history, with this decree Pericles breached the Thirty Years' Peace "but, perhaps, not without the semblance of an excuse". The Athenians' justification was that the Megarians had cultivated the sacred land consecrated to Demeter and had given refuge to runaway slaves, a behavior which the Athenians considered to be impious.


title: Pericles

text: After consultations with its allies, Sparta sent a deputation to Athens demanding certain concessions, such as the immediate expulsion of the Alcmaeonidae family including Pericles and the retraction of the Megarian Decree, threatening war if the demands were not met. The obvious purpose of these proposals was the instigation of a confrontation between Pericles and the people; this event, indeed, would come about a few years later. At that time, the Athenians unhesitatingly followed Pericles' instructions. In the first legendary oration Thucydides puts in his mouth, Pericles advised the Athenians not to yield to their opponents' demands, since they were militarily stronger. Pericles was not prepared to make unilateral concessions, believing that "if Athens conceded on that issue, then Sparta was sure to come up with further demands". Consequently, Pericles asked the Spartans to offer a "quid pro quo". In exchange for retracting the Megarian Decree, the Athenians demanded from Sparta to abandon their practice of periodic expulsion of foreigners from their territory (xenelasia) and to recognize the autonomy of its allied cities, a request implying that Sparta's hegemony was also ruthless. The terms were rejected by the Spartans, and with neither side willing to back down, the two cities prepared for war. According to Athanasios G. Platias and Constantinos Koliopoulos, professors of strategic studies and international politics, "rather than to submit to coercive demands, Pericles chose war". Another consideration that may well have influenced Pericles' stance was the concern that revolts in the empire might spread if Athens showed itself weak.


title: Pericles

text: In 431 BC, while peace already was precarious, Archidamus II, Sparta's king, sent a new delegation to Athens, demanding that the Athenians submit to Sparta's demands. This deputation was not allowed to enter Athens, as Pericles had already passed a resolution according to which no Spartan deputation would be welcomed if the Spartans had previously initiated any hostile military actions. The Spartan army was at this time gathered at Corinth, and, citing this as a hostile action, the Athenians refused to admit their emissaries. With his last attempt at negotiation thus declined, Archidamus invaded Attica, but found no Athenians there; Pericles, aware that Sparta's strategy would be to invade and ravage Athenian territory, had previously arranged to evacuate the entire population of the region to within the walls of Athens.


title: Pericles

text: No definite record exists of how exactly Pericles managed to convince the residents of Attica to agree to move into the crowded urban areas. For most, the move meant abandoning their land and ancestral shrines and completely changing their lifestyle. Therefore, although they agreed to leave, many rural residents were far from happy with Pericles' decision. Pericles also gave his compatriots some advice on their present affairs and reassured them that, if the enemy did not plunder his farms, he would offer his property to the city. This promise was prompted by his concern that Archidamus, who was a friend of his, might pass by his estate without ravaging it, either as a gesture of friendship or as a calculated political move aimed to alienate Pericles from his constituents.