title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Catholic K-8 elementary schools include Our Lady of Czestochowa School, Sacred Heart School, Saint Aloysius Elementary Academy, St. Joseph School and St. Nicholas School. In 2015, Our Lady of Czestochowa School was one of 15 schools in New Jersey, and one of six private schools, recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School in the exemplary high performing category by the United States Department of Education.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: In the face of declining enrollment and rising expenses, the Newark Archdiocese closed Our Lady of Mercy Academy (founded in 1964) and Resurrection School at the end of the 2012–13 school year. St. Anne School closed at the end of the 2011–12 school year after 112 years, as enrollment declined from 700 students in 1976 to 240 in 2010–11 and 188 in the school's final year of operation.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Other private high schools in Jersey City include First Christian Pentecostal Academy and Stevens Cooperative School. Kenmare High School is operated through the York Street Project as part of an effort to reduce rates of poverty in households headed by women, through a program that offers small class sizes, individualized learning and development of life skills. The French American Academy, located in the century-old three-story building of the former St. Mary's High School, is a private bilingual school PK-3. A number of other private schools are also available. Genesis Educational Center is a private Christian school located in downtown Jersey City for ages newborn through 8th grade. The Jersey City Art School is a private art school located in downtown Jersey City for all ages.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Jersey City is located in the New York media market, and most of its daily papers are available for sale or delivery. The daily newspaper "The Jersey Journal", formerly located at its namesake Journal Square, covers Hudson County, its morning daily, "Hudson Dispatch" now defunct. The "Jersey City Reporter" is part of The Hudson Reporter group of local weeklies. The "Jersey City Independent" is a web-only news outlet that covers politics and culture in the city. The "River View Observer" is another weekly published in the city and distributed throughout the county. Another countywide weekly, "El Especialito", also serves the city. The "Jersey City Independent" is an online newspaper covering Jersey City and surrounding municipalities. It also publishes "JCI Magazine", a print quarterly magazine. The "Daily News" maintains extensive publishing and distribution facilities at Liberty Industrial Park.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: WFMU 91.1FM (WMFU 90.1 FM in the Hudson Valley), the longest-running freeform radio station in the United States, moved to Jersey City in 1998.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Jersey City was the filming location for the debut season of the 2012 reality television series "Snooki & JWoww", a spinoff of "Jersey Shore" that starred Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and Jennifer "JWoww" Farley living at a former firehouse at 38 Mercer Street at Grove Street in Downtown Jersey City.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Of all Jersey City commuters, 8.17% walk to work, and 46.62% take public transit. This is the second highest percentage of public transit riders of any city with a population of 100,000+ in the United States, behind only New York City and ahead of Washington, D.C. 40.67% of Jersey City households do not own an automobile, the second-highest of all cities in the United States with 50,000 to 250,000 residents.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: The Journal Square Transportation Center, Exchange Place and Hoboken Terminal are major origination/destination points for buses. Service is available to numerous points in Jersey City, Hudson County, and some suburban areas as well as to Newark on the 1, 2, 6, 10, 22, 64, 67, 68, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 123, 125, 319 lines.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Also serving Jersey City are various lines operated by Academy Bus and A&C Bus. Increased use of jitneys, locally known as dollar vans, has greatly affected travel patterns in Hudson County, leading to decreased bus ridership on traditional bus lines. After studies examining existing systems and changes in public transportation usage patterns it was determined that a Journal Square-Bayonne bus rapid transit system should be investigated. In 2012, the Board of Chosen Freeholders authorized the identification of possible BRT corridors.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Since 2016, two Taiwanese airlines, China Airlines and EVA Air, have provided private bus services to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City for customers based in New Jersey. These bus services stop in Jersey City.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: In February 2020, the city launched its on-demand transit system in partnership with Via Transportation. The city-run microtransit service, Via Jersey City, complements and extends the existing public transit networks, providing better connections between residential neighborhoods, business districts, government facilities, PATH stations, and ferry and light rail stops in the north and south regions of the city. Commuters can use the Via app to book an on-demand ride from their smartphone. As of March 2021, Via Jersey City was expanding to provide a weekend service.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: , the city had a total of of roadways, of which were maintained by the municipality, by Hudson County and by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: A part of the East Coast Greenway, a planned unbroken bike route from Maine to the Florida Keys, will travel through the city. In June 2012, part of the route was officially designated in Lincoln Park and over the Lincoln Highway Hackensack River Bridge. Both the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway and Hackensack RiverWalk are bicycle friendly.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: In April 2012, the city initiated the Morris Canal Greenway Plan to investigate the establishment of a greenway, including a bicycle path, that would follow the route of the Morris Canal to the greatest extent possible. In the same month, the city established bikes lanes along the length Grove Street, originally meant to temporary. In December 2012, the city announced that Grove Street lanes would become permanent and that it would add an additional of both dedicated and shared bike lanes.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: "The Harbor Ring" is an initiative to create a 50-mile bike route along the Lower Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, and Kill van Kull that would incorporate bike paths in the city.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: In 2013, the city simplified the application and reduced the cost for business and residences to install bike racks as well as making them obligatory for certain new construction projects.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Also in 2013, Hudson County had initiated exploration of a bike-share program. Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken intended to operate the program starting in 2014 but delayed the launch due to lack of sponsorship. The revamped program officially launched on September 21, 2015, as Citi Bike with membership working in Jersey City and New York City.


title: Jersey City, New Jersey

text: Jersey City has a high percentage of residents who commute without a car. In 2015, 40.1 percent of city Jersey City households were without a car, which decreased to 37.1 percent in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Jersey City averaged 0.85 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8 per household.


title: Dreamcatcher

text: In some Native American and First Nations cultures, a dreamcatcher (, the inanimate form of the word for 'spider') is a handmade willow hoop, on which is woven a net or web. It may also be decorated with sacred items such as certain feathers or beads. Traditionally, dreamcatchers are hung over a cradle or bed as protection. It originates in Anishinaabe culture as "the spider web charm" – "asubakacin" 'net-like' (White Earth Nation); "bwaajige ngwaagan" 'dream snare' (Curve Lake First Nation) – a hoop with woven string or sinew meant to replicate a spider's web, used as a protective charm for infants.


title: Dreamcatcher

text: Dream catchers were adopted in the Pan-Indian Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and gained popularity as widely marketed "Native crafts items" in the 1980s.


title: Dreamcatcher

text: Ethnographer Frances Densmore in 1929 recorded an Ojibwe legend according to which the "spiderwebs" protective charms originate with Spider Woman, known as "Asibikaashi"; who takes care of the children and the people on the land. As the Ojibwe Nation spread to the corners of North America it became difficult for Asibikaashi to reach all the children. So the mothers and grandmothers weave webs for the children, using willow hoops and sinew, or cordage made from plants. The purpose of these charms is apotropaic and not explicitly connected with dreams:


title: Dreamcatcher

text: Even infants were provided with protective charms. Examples of these are the "spiderwebs" hung on the hoop of a cradle board. In old times this netting was made of nettle fiber. Two spider webs were usually hung on the hoop, and it was said that they "caught any harm that might be in the air as a spider's web catches and holds whatever comes in contact with it."


title: Dreamcatcher

text: Basil Johnston, an elder from Neyaashiinigmiing, in his "Ojibway Heritage" (1976) gives the story of Spider (, "little net maker") as a trickster figure catching Snake in his web.


title: Dreamcatcher

text: While dreamcatchers continue to be used in a traditional manner in their communities and cultures of origin, derivative forms of dreamcatchers were adopted into the Pan-Indian movement of the 1960s and 1970s as a symbol of unity among the various Native American cultures, or as a general symbol of identification with Native American or First Nations cultures.


title: Dreamcatcher

text: The name "dream catcher" was published in mainstream, non-Native media in the 1970s and became widely known as a Native crafts item by the 1980. By the early 1990s, it was "one of the most popular and marketable" ones.


title: Dreamcatcher

text: In the course of becoming popular outside the Ojibwe Nation, and then outside the pan-Indian communities, various types of "dreamcatchers", many of which bear little resemblance to traditional styles, and that incorporate materials that would not be traditionally used, are now made, exhibited, and sold by New Age groups and individuals. While some people see this popularization as harmless, many Native Americans have come to see these imitation dreamcatchers as over-commercialized, offensively misappropriated and misused by non-Natives.


title: Dreamcatcher

text: A mounted and framed dreamcatcher is being used as a shared symbol of hope and healing by the Little Thunderbirds Drum and Dance Troupe from the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. In recognition of the shared trauma and loss experienced, both at their school during the Red Lake shootings, and by other students who have survived similar school shootings, they have traveled to other schools to meet with students, share songs and stories, and gift them with the dreamcatcher. The dreamcatcher has now been passed from Red Lake to students at Columbine, Colorado, to Sandy Hook, Connecticut, to Marysville, Washington, to Townville, South Carolina, to Parkland, Florida.


title: NIFTY 50

text: The NIFTY 50 is a benchmark Indian stock market index that represents the weighted average of 50 of the largest Indian companies listed on the National Stock Exchange. It is one of the two main stock indices used in India, the other being the BSE SENSEX.


title: NIFTY 50

text: Nifty 50 is owned and managed by NSE Indices (previously known as India Index Services & Products Limited), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the NSE Strategic Investment Corporation Limited. NSE Indices had a marketing and licensing agreement with Standard & Poor's for co-branding equity indices until 2013. The Nifty 50 index was launched on 22 April 1996, and is one of the many stock indices of Nifty.


title: NIFTY 50

text: The NIFTY 50 index has shaped up to be the largest single financial product in India, with an ecosystem consisting of exchange-traded funds (onshore and offshore), exchange-traded options at NSE, and futures and options abroad at the SGX. NIFTY 50 is the world's most actively traded contract. WFE, IOM and FIA surveys endorse NSE's leadership position.


title: NIFTY 50

text: The NIFTY 50 index covers 13 sectors (as on 30 April 2021) of the Indian economy and offers investment managers exposure to the Indian market in one portfolio. Between 2008 & 2012, the NIFTY 50 index's share of NSE's market capitalisation fell from 65% to 29% due to the rise of sectoral indices like NIFTY Bank, NIFTY IT, NIFTY Pharma, NIFTY SERV SECTOR, NIFTY Next 50, etc. The NIFTY 50 Index gives a weightage of 39.47% to financial services, 15.31% to Energy, 13.01% to IT, 12.38% to consumer goods, 6.11% to Automobiles and 0% to the agricultural sector.


title: NIFTY 50

text: The NIFTY 50 index is a free float market capitalisation weighted index. The index was initially calculated on a full market capitalisation methodology. On 26 June 2009, the computation was changed to a free-float methodology. The base period for the NIFTY 50 index is 3 November 1995, which marked the completion of one year of operations of the "National Stock Exchange Equity Market Segment". The base value of the index has been set at 1000 and a base capital of ₹ 2.06 trillion.


title: NIFTY 50

text: The following table shows the annual development of the NIFTY 50 since 2000. The historical daily returns data can be accessed from the NSE website.


title: NIFTY 50

text: Trading in call and put options on the Nifty 50 are offered by the NSE. The exchange offers weekly as well as monthly expiry.


title: NIFTY 50

text: NIFTY Next 50, also called NIFTY Junior, is an index of 50 companies whose free float market capitalisation comes after that of the companies in NIFTY 50. NIFTY Next 50 constituents are thus potential candidates for future inclusion in NIFTY 50.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: Madame Tussauds (, ) is a wax museum founded in 1835 by French wax sculptor Marie Tussaud in London, spawning similar museums in major cities around the world. While it used to be spelled as "Madame Tussaud's"; the apostrophe is no longer used. Madame Tussauds is a major tourist attraction in many cities, displaying the waxworks of famous and historical figures, as well as popular film and television characters.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: Marie Tussaud was born as Marie Grosholtz in 1761 in Strasbourg, France. Her mother worked for Philippe Curtius in Bern, Switzerland, who was a physician skilled in wax modeling. Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modelling beginning when she was a child. He moved to Paris and took his young apprentice, then only 6 years old, with him.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: Grosholtz created her first wax sculpture in 1777 of Voltaire. At the age of 17, she became the art tutor to Madame Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis XVI of France, at the Palace of Versailles. During the French Revolution, she was imprisoned for three months and awaiting execution, but was released after the intervention of an influential friend. During the Revolution, she made models of many prominent victims.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: Grosholtz inherited Curtius's vast collection of wax models following his death in 1794. For the next 33 years, she travelled around Europe with a touring show from the collection. She married Francois Tussaud in 1795 and took his surname. She renamed her show as Madame Tussaud's. In 1802, she accepted an invitation from Paul Philidor, a lantern and phantasmagoria pioneer, to exhibit her work alongside his show at the Lyceum Theatre, London. She did not fare particularly well financially, with Philidor taking half of her profits.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: She was unable to return to France because of the Napoleonic Wars, so she traveled throughout Great Britain and Ireland exhibiting her collection. From 1831, she took a series of short leases on the upper floor of "Baker Street Bazaar" (on the west side of Baker Street, Dorset Street, and King Street in London). This site was later featured in the Druce-Portland case sequence of trials of 1898–1907. This became Tussaud's first permanent home in 1836.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: By 1835, Marie Tussaud had settled down in Baker Street, London and opened a museum. One of the main attractions of her museum was the Chamber of Horrors. The name is often credited to a contributor to "Punch" in 1845, but Tussaud appears to have originated it herself, using it in advertising as early as 1843.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: This part of the exhibition included victims of the French Revolution and newly created figures of murderers and other criminals. Other famous people were added, including Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Henry VIII and Queen Victoria.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: Some sculptures still exist that were made by Marie Tussaud herself. The gallery originally contained some 400 different figures, but fire damage in 1925, coupled with German bombs in 1941, severely damaged most of such older models. The casts themselves have survived, allowing the historical waxworks to be remade, and these can be seen in the museum's history exhibit. The oldest figure on display is that of Madame du Barry, the work of Curtius from 1765 and part of the waxworks left to Grosholtz at his death. Other faces from the time of Tussaud include Robespierre and George III. In 1842, she made a self-portrait, which is now on display at the entrance of her museum. She died in her sleep in London on 16 April 1850.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: By 1883, the restricted space and rising cost of the Baker Street site prompted her grandson Joseph Randall to commission construction of a building at the museum's current location on Marylebone Road. The new exhibition galleries were opened on 14 July 1884 and were a great success. But Randall had bought out his cousin Louisa's half share in the business in 1881, and that plus the building costs resulted in his having too little capital. He formed a limited company in 1888 to attract fresh capital but it had to be dissolved after disagreements between the family shareholders. In February 1889 Tussaud's was sold to a group of businessmen, led by Edwin Josiah Poyser. The first wax sculpture of a young Winston Churchill was made in 1908; a total of ten have been made since. The first overseas branch of Madame Tussauds was opened in Amsterdam in 1970.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: In 2005, Madame Tussauds was sold to a company in Dubai, Dubai International Capital, for £800m (US$1.5bn). In May 2007, The Blackstone Group purchased The Tussauds Group from then-owner Dubai International Capital for US$1.9 billion; the company was merged with Blackstone's Merlin Entertainments and operation of Madame Tussauds was taken over by Merlin. After the Tussauds acquisition, Dubai International Capital gained 20% of Merlin Entertainment.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: On 17 July 2007, as part of the financing for the Tussauds deal, Merlin sold the freehold of Madame Tussauds to private investor Nick Leslau and his investment firm Prestbury under a sale and leaseback agreement. Although the attraction sites are owned by Prestbury, they are operated by Merlin based on a renewable 35-year lease.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: Madame Tussaud's wax museum became a major tourist attraction in London. Until 2010, it incorporated the London Planetarium in its west wing. A large animated dark ride, "The Spirit of London", opened in 1993. Today's wax figures at Tussauds include historical and royal figures, film stars, sports stars, and famous murderers. It has been known since 2007 as "Madame Tussauds" museums (no apostrophe).


title: Madame Tussauds

text: In July 2008, Madame Tussauds' Berlin branch became embroiled in controversy when a 41-year-old German man brushed past two guards and decapitated a wax figure depicting Adolf Hitler. This was believed to be an act of protest against showing the ruthless dictator alongside sports heroes, movie stars, and other historical figures. The statue has since been repaired, and the perpetrator has admitted that he attacked the statue to win a bet. The original model of Hitler was unveiled in Madame Tussauds London in April 1933; it was frequently vandalised and a 1936 replacement had to be carefully guarded. In January 2016, the statue of Adolf Hitler was removed from the Chamber of Horrors section in the London museum in response to an open letter sent by a staff writer of "The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles", followed by significant support for its removal from social media.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: The first Madame Tussauds in India opened in New Delhi on 1 December 2017. Its operator, Merlin Entertainments, planned an investment of 50 million pounds over the next 10 years. It features over 50 wax models, including political and entertainment figures such as Ariana Grande, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sachin Tendulkar, Kim Kardashian, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie, Asha Bhosle, Kapil Dev, and Mary Kom.


title: Madame Tussauds

text: On 30 December 2020, the holding company of Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Delhi, India confirmed a temporary shutdown of the Museum. It is scheduled to reopen in 2022.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in the mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the entire Eurasian Steppe, from the Great Hungarian Plain in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The ancient Iranian peoples who emerged after the 1st millennium BC include the Alans, the Bactrians, the Dahae, the Khwarazmians, the Massagetae, the Medes, the Parthians, the Persians, the Sagartians, the Sakas, the Sarmatians, the Scythians, the Sogdians, and likely the Cimmerians, among other Iranian-speaking peoples of Western Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Eastern Steppe.


title: Iranian peoples

text: In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement, which was mainly concentrated in the steppes and deserts of Eurasia, was significantly reduced as a result of Slavic, Germanic, Turkic, and Mongolic expansions; many were subjected to Slavicization and Turkification. Modern Iranian peoples include the Baloch, the Gilaks, the Kurds, the Lurs, the Mazanderanis, the Ossetians, the Pamiris, the Pashtuns, the Persians, the Tats, the Tajiks, the Talysh, the Wakhis, the Yaghnobis, and the Zazas. Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian Plateau, stretching from the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south and from eastern Anatolia in the west to western Xinjiang in the east—a region that is sometimes called the "Iranian Cultural Continent", representing the extent of the Iranian-speakers and the significant influence of the Iranian peoples through the geopolitical and cultural reach of Greater Iran.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The term "Iran" derives directly from Middle Persian "Ērān" / "AEran" () and Parthian "Aryān". The Middle Iranian terms "ērān" and "aryān" are oblique plural forms of gentilic "ēr-" (in Middle Persian) and "ary-" (in Parthian), both deriving from Old Persian "ariya-" (), Avestan "airiia-" () and Proto-Iranian "*arya-".


title: Iranian peoples

text: There have been many attempts to qualify the verbal root of "ar-" in Old Iranian "arya-". The following are according to 1957 and later linguists:


title: Iranian peoples

text: Unlike the Sanskrit ("Aryan"), the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning. Today, the Old Iranian "arya-" remains in ethno-linguistic names such as "Iran", "Alan", "Ir", and "Iron".


title: Iranian peoples

text: In the Iranian languages, the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and the literature of Avesta. The earliest epigraphically attested reference to the word "arya-" occurs in the Bistun Inscription of the 6th century BC. The inscription of Bistun (or "Behistun"; ) describes itself to have been composed in "Arya" [language or script]. As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the "arya" of the inscription does not signify anything but "Iranian".


title: Iranian peoples

text: In the Dna and Dse, Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as "an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, and an Aryan, of Aryan stock". Although Darius the Great called his language "arya-" ("Iranian"), modern scholars refer to it as "Old Persian" because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The trilingual inscription erected by the command of Shapur I gives a more clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek. In Greek inscription says ""ego ... tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi"", which translates to "I am the king of the kingdom ("nation") of the Iranians". In Middle Persian, Shapur says ""ērānšahr xwadāy hēm"" and in Parthian he says ""aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm"".


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Avesta clearly uses "airiia-" as an ethnic name (Videvdat 1; Yasht 13.143–44, etc.), where it appears in expressions such as "airyāfi daiŋˊhāvō" ("Iranian lands"), "airyō šayanəm" ("land inhabited by Iranians"), and "airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi dāityayāfi" ("Iranian stretch of the good Dāityā"). In the late part of the Avesta (Videvdat 1), one of the mentioned homelands was referred to as "Airyan'əm Vaējah" which approximately means "expanse of the Iranians". The homeland varied in its geographic range, the area around Herat (Pliny's view) and even the entire expanse of the Iranian Plateau (Strabo's designation).


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by the Greek sources. Herodotus, in his "Histories", remarks about the Iranian Medes that "Medes were called anciently by all people "Arians"" (7.62). In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as "Iranians". Eudemus of Rhodes (Dubitationes et Solutiones de Primis Principiis, in Platonis Parmenidem) refers to "the "Magi" and all those of "Iranian" ("áreion") lineage". Diodorus Siculus (1.94.2) considers Zoroaster ("Zathraustēs") as one of the "Arianoi".


title: Iranian peoples

text: Strabo, in his "Geographica" (1st century AD), mentions of the Medes, Persians, Bactrians and Sogdians of the Iranian Plateau and Transoxiana of antiquity:


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Bactrian (a Middle Iranian language) inscription of Kanishka (the founder of the Kushan Empire) at Rabatak, which was discovered in 1993 in an unexcavated site in the Afghan province of Baghlan, clearly refers to this Eastern Iranian language as "Arya".


title: Iranian peoples

text: All this evidence shows that the name "Arya" was a collective definition, denoting peoples who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that centered on the cult of Ohrmazd.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The academic usage of the term "Iranian" is distinct from the state of Iran and its various citizens (who are all Iranian by nationality), in the same way that the term "Germanic peoples" is distinct from "Germans". Some inhabitants of Iran are not necessarily ethnic Iranians by virtue of not being speakers of Iranian languages.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Some scholars such as John Perry prefer the term "Iranic" as the anthropological name for the linguistic family and ethnic groups of this category (many of which exist outside Iran), while "Iranian" for anything about the country Iran. He uses the same analogue as in differentiating German from Germanic or differentiating Turkish and Turkic. German scholar Martin Kummel also argues the same distinction of "Iranian" from "Iranic".


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Proto-Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with the Sintashta culture and the subsequent Andronovo culture within the broader Andronovo horizon, and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west and the Tian Shan on the east.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Indo-Iranian migrations took place in two waves. The first wave consisted of the Indo-Aryan migration through the Bactria-Margiana Culture, also called "Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex," into the Levant, founding the Mittani kingdom; and a migration south-eastward of the Vedic people, over the Hindu Kush into northern India. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BC from the Iranians, whereafter they were defeated and split into two groups by the Iranians, who dominated the Central Eurasian steppe zone and "chased [the Indo-Aryans] to the extremities of Central Eurasia." One group were the Indo-Aryans who founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria; (c. 1500–1300 BC) the other group were the Vedic people. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun, an Indo-European Caucasian people of Inner Asia in antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave, and took place in the third stage of the Indo-European migrations from 800 BC onwards.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Sintashta culture, also known as the Sintashta–Petrovka culture or Sintashta–Arkaim culture, is a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the northern Eurasian steppe on the borders of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, dated to the period 2100–1800 BC. It is probably the archaeological manifestation of the Indo-Iranian language group.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Sintashta culture emerged from the interaction of two antecedent cultures. Its immediate predecessor in the Ural-Tobol steppe was the Poltavka culture, an offshoot of the cattle-herding Yamnaya horizon that moved east into the region between 2800 and 2600 BC. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka motifs are common on Sintashta pottery. Sintashta material culture also shows the influence of the late Abashevo culture, a collection of Corded Ware settlements in the forest steppe zone north of the Sintashta region that were also predominantly pastoralist. Allentoft et al. (2015) also found close autosomal genetic relationship between peoples of Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare. Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Because of the difficulty of identifying the remains of Sintashta sites beneath those of later settlements, the culture was only recently distinguished from the Andronovo culture. It is now recognised as a separate entity forming part of the 'Andronovo horizon'.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Bronze Age Indo-Iranian cultures that flourished c. 1800–900 BC in western Siberia and the west Asiatic steppe. It is probably better termed an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The name derives from the village of Andronovo (), where in 1914, several graves were discovered, with skeletons in crouched positions, buried with richly decorated pottery. The older Sintashta culture (2100–1800), formerly included within the Andronovo culture, is now considered separately, but regarded as its predecessor, and accepted as part of the wider Andronovo horizon. At least four sub-cultures of the Andronovo horizon have been distinguished, during which the culture expands towards the south and the east:


title: Iranian peoples

text: The geographical extent of the culture is vast and difficult to delineate exactly. On its western fringes, it overlaps with the approximately contemporaneous, but distinct, Srubna culture in the Volga-Ural interfluvial. To the east, it reaches into the Minusinsk depression, with some sites as far west as the southern Ural Mountains, overlapping with the area of the earlier Afanasevo culture. Additional sites are scattered as far south as the Koppet Dag (Turkmenistan), the Pamir (Tajikistan) and the Tian Shan (Kyrgyzstan). The northern boundary vaguely corresponds to the beginning of the Taiga. In the Volga basin, interaction with the Srubna culture was the most intense and prolonged, and Federovo style pottery is found as far west as Volgograd.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Most researchers associate the Andronovo horizon with early Indo-Iranian languages, though it may have overlapped the early Uralic-speaking area at its northern fringe.


title: Iranian peoples

text: From the late 2nd millennium BC to early 1st millennium BC the Iranians had expanded from the Eurasian Steppe, and Iranian peoples such as Medes, Persians, Parthians and Bactrians populated the Iranian Plateau.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Scythian tribes, along with Cimmerians, Sarmatians and Alans populated the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Scythian and Sarmatian tribes were spread across Great Hungarian Plain, South-Eastern Ukraine, Russias Siberian, Southern, Volga, Uralic regions and the Balkans, while other Scythian tribes, such as the Saka, spread as far east as Xinjiang, China. Scythians as well formed the Indo-Scythian Empire, and Bactrians formed a Greco-Bactrian Kingdom founded by Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria. The Kushan Empire, with Bactrian roots/connections, once controlled much of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. The Kushan elite (who the Chinese called the Yuezhi) were an Eastern Iranian language-speaking people.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The division into an "Eastern" and a "Western" group by the early 1st millennium is visible in Avestan vs. Old Persian, the two oldest known Iranian languages. The Old Avestan texts known as the Gathas are believed to have been composed by Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, with the Yaz culture (c. 1500 BC – 1100 BC) as a candidate for the development of Eastern Iranian culture.


title: Iranian peoples

text: During the 1st centuries of the 1st millennium BC, the ancient Persians established themselves in the western portion of the Iranian Plateau and appear to have interacted considerably with the Elamites and Babylonians, while the Medes also entered in contact with the Assyrians. Remnants of the Median language and Old Persian show their common Proto-Iranian roots, emphasized in Strabo and Herodotus' description of their languages as very similar to the languages spoken by the Bactrians and Sogdians in the east. Following the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian language (referred to as ""Farsi"" in Persian) spread from Pars or Fars Province to various regions of the Empire, with the modern dialects of Iran, Afghanistan (also known as Dari) and Central-Asia (known as Tajiki) descending from Old Persian.


title: Iranian peoples

text: At first, the Western Iranian peoples in the Near East were dominated by the various Assyrian empires. An alliance of the Medes with the Persians, and rebelling Babylonians, Scythians, Chaldeans, and Cimmerians, helped the Medes to capture Nineveh in 612 BC, which resulted in the eventual collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by 605 BC. The Medes were subsequently able to establish their Median kingdom (with Ecbatana as their royal centre) beyond their original homeland and had eventually a territory stretching roughly from northeastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire, between 616 BC and 605 BC, a unified Median state was formed, which, together with Babylonia, Lydia, and Egypt, became one of the four major powers of the ancient Near East


title: Iranian peoples

text: Later on, in 550 BC, Cyrus the Great, would overthrow the leading Median rule, and conquer Kingdom of Lydia and the Babylonian Empire after which he established the Achaemenid Empire (or the First Persian Empire), while his successors would dramatically extend its borders. At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire would encompass swaths of territory across three continents, namely Europe, Africa and Asia, stretching from the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east. The largest empire of ancient history, with their base in Persis (although the main capital was located in Babylon) the Achaemenids would rule much of the known ancient world for centuries. This First Persian Empire was equally notable for its successful model of a centralised, bureaucratic administration (through satraps under a king) and a government working to the profit of its subjects, for building infrastructure such as a postal system and road systems and the use of an official language across its territories and a large professional army and civil services (inspiring similar systems in later empires), and for emancipation of slaves including the Jewish exiles in Babylon, and is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city states during the Greco-Persian Wars. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in the empire as well.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Greco-Persian Wars resulted in the Persians being forced to withdraw from their European territories, setting the direct further course of history of Greece and the rest of Europe. More than a century later, a prince of Macedon (which itself was a subject to Persia from the late 6th century BC up to the First Persian invasion of Greece) later known by the name of Alexander the Great, overthrew the incumbent Persian king, by which the Achaemenid Empire was ended.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Old Persian is attested in the Behistun Inscription (c. 519 BC), recording a proclamation by Darius the Great. In southwestern Iran, the Achaemenid kings usually wrote their inscriptions in trilingual form (Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian) while elsewhere other languages were used. The administrative languages were Elamite in the early period, and later Imperial Aramaic, as well as Greek, making it a widely used bureaucratic language. Even though the Achaemenids had extensive contacts with the Greeks and vice versa, and had conquered many of the Greek-speaking area's both in Europe and Asia Minor during different periods of the empire, the native Old Iranian sources provide no indication of Greek linguistic evidence. However, there is plenty of evidence (in addition to the accounts of Herodotus) that Greeks, apart from being deployed and employed in the core regions of the empire, also evidently lived and worked in the heartland of the Achaemenid Empire, namely Iran. For example, Greeks were part of the various ethnicities that constructed Darius' palace in Susa, apart from the Greek inscriptions found nearby there, and one short Persepolis tablet written in Greek.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The early inhabitants of the Achaemenid Empire appear to have adopted the religion of Zoroastrianism. The Baloch who speak a west Iranian language relate an oral tradition regarding their migration from Aleppo, Syria around the year 1000 AD, whereas linguistic evidence links Balochi to Kurmanji, Soranî, Gorani and Zazaki language.


title: Iranian peoples

text: While the Iranian tribes of the south are better known through their texts and modern counterparts, the tribes which remained largely in the vast Eurasian expanse are known through the references made to them by the ancient Greeks, Persians, Chinese, and Indo-Aryans as well as by archaeological finds. The Greek chronicler, Herodotus (5th century BC) makes references to a nomadic people, the Scythians; he describes them as having dwelt in what is today southern European Russia and Ukraine. He was the first to make a reference to them.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Many ancient Sanskrit texts from a later period make references to such tribes they were witness of pointing them towards the southeasternmost edges of Central Asia, around the Hindukush range in northern Pakistan.


title: Iranian peoples

text: It is believed that these Scythians were conquered by their eastern cousins, the Sarmatians, who are mentioned by Strabo as the dominant tribe which controlled the southern Russian steppe in the 1st millennium AD. These Sarmatians were also known to the Romans, who conquered the western tribes in the Balkans and sent Sarmatian conscripts, as part of Roman legions, as far west as Roman Britain. These Iranian-speaking Scythians and Sarmatians dominated large parts of Eastern Europe for a millennium, and were eventually absorbed and assimilated (e.g. Slavicisation) by the Proto-Slavic population of the region.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of the god of fire rather than god of nature, and women's prominent role in warfare, which possibly served as the inspiration for the Amazons. At their greatest reported extent, around the 1st century AD, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas as well as the Caucasus to the south. Their territory, which was known as Sarmatia to Greco-Roman ethnographers, corresponded to the western part of greater Scythia (mostly modern Ukraine and Southern Russia, also to a smaller extent north eastern Balkans around Moldova). According to authors Arrowsmith, Fellowes and Graves Hansard in their book "A Grammar of Ancient Geography" published in 1832, Sarmatia had two parts, Sarmatia Europea and Sarmatia Asiatica covering a combined area of 503,000 sq mi or 1,302,764 km.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Throughout the 1st millennium AD, the large presence of the Sarmatians who once dominated Ukraine, Southern Russia, and swaths of the Carpathians, gradually started to diminish mainly due to assimilation and absorption by the Germanic Goths, especially from the areas near the Roman frontier, but only completely by the Proto-Slavic peoples. The abundant East Iranian-derived toponyms in Eastern Europe proper (e.g. some of the largest rivers; the Dniestr and Dniepr), as well as loanwords adopted predominantly through the Eastern Slavic languages and adopted aspects of Iranian culture amongst the early Slavs, are all a remnant of this. A connection between Proto-Slavonic and Iranian languages is also furthermore proven by the earliest layer of loanwords in the former. For instance, the Proto-Slavonic words for god "(*bogъ)", demon "(*divъ)", house "(*xata)", axe "(*toporъ)" and dog "(*sobaka)" are of Scythian origin.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The extensive contact between these Scytho-Sarmatian Iranian tribes in Eastern Europe and the (Early) Slavs included religion. After Slavic and Baltic languages diverged the Early Slavs interacted with Iranian peoples and merged elements of Iranian spirituality into their beliefs. For example, both Early Iranian and Slavic supreme gods were considered givers of wealth, unlike the supreme thunder gods in many other European religions. Also, both Slavs and Iranians had demons –- given names from similar linguistic roots, Daêva (Iranian) and Divŭ (Slavic) –- and a concept of dualism, of good and evil.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The Sarmatians of the east, based in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, became the Alans, who also ventured far and wide, with a branch ending up in Western Europe and then North Africa, as they accompanied the Germanic Vandals and Suebi during their migrations. The modern Ossetians are believed to be the direct descendants of the Alans, as other remnants of the Alans disappeared following Germanic, Hunnic and ultimately Slavic migrations and invasions.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Another group of Alans allied with Goths to defeat the Romans and ultimately settled in what is now called Catalonia (Goth-Alania).


title: Iranian peoples

text: Some of the Saka-Scythian tribes in Central Asia would later move further southeast and invade the Iranian Plateau, large sections of present-day Afghanistan and finally deep into present day Pakistan (see Indo-Scythians). Another Iranian tribe related to the Saka-Scythians were the Parni in Central Asia, and who later become indistinguishable from the Parthians, speakers of a northwest-Iranian language. Many Iranian tribes, including the Khwarazmians, Massagetae and Sogdians, were assimilated and/or displaced in Central Asia by the migrations of Turkic tribes emanating out of Xinjiang and Siberia.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The modern Sarikoli in southern Xinjiang and the Ossetians of the Caucasus (mainly South Ossetia and North Ossetia) are remnants of the various Scythian-derived tribes from the vast far and wide territory they once dwelled in. The modern Ossetians are the descendants of the Alano-Sarmatians, and their claims are supported by their Northeast Iranian language, while culturally the Ossetians resemble their North Caucasian neighbors, the Kabardians and Circassians. Various extinct Iranian peoples existed in the eastern Caucasus, including the Azaris, while some Iranian peoples remain in the region, including the Talysh and the Tats found in Azerbaijan and as far north as the Russian republic of Dagestan. A remnant of the Sogdians is found in the Yaghnobi-speaking population in parts of the Zeravshan valley in Tajikistan.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The main migration of Turkic peoples occurred between the 6th and 10th centuries, when they spread across most of Central Asia. The Turkic peoples slowly replaced and assimilated the previous Iranian-speaking locals, turning the population of Central Asia from largely Iranian, into primarily of East Asian descent.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Starting with the reign of Omar in 634 AD, Muslim Arabs began a conquest of the Iranian Plateau. The Arabs conquered the Sassanid Empire of the Persians and seized much of the Byzantine Empire populated by the Kurds and others. Ultimately, the various Iranian peoples, including the Persians, Pashtuns, Kurds and Balochis, converted to Islam, while the Alans converted to Christianity, thus laying the foundation for the fact that the modern-day Ossetians are Christian. The Iranian peoples would later split along sectarian lines as the Persians adopted the Shi'a sect. As ancient tribes and identities changed, so did the Iranian peoples, many of whom assimilated foreign cultures and peoples.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Later, during the 2nd millennium AD, the Iranian peoples would play a prominent role during the age of Islamic expansion and empire. Saladin, a noted adversary of the Crusaders, was an ethnic Kurd, while various empires centered in Iran (including the Safavids) re-established a modern dialect of Persian as the official language spoken throughout much of what is today Iran and the Caucasus. Iranian influence spread to the neighbouring Ottoman Empire, where Persian was often spoken at court (though a heavy Turko-Persian basis there was set already by the predecessors of the Ottomans in Anatolia, namely the Seljuks and the Sultanate of Rum amongst others) as well to the court of the Mughal Empire. All of the major Iranian peoples reasserted their use of Iranian languages following the decline of Arab rule, but would not begin to form modern national identities until the 19th and early 20th centuries.


title: Iranian peoples

text: There are an estimated 150 to 200 million native speakers of Iranian languages, the six major groups of Persians, Lurs, Kurds, Tajiks, Baloch, and Pashtuns accounting for about 90% of this number. Currently, most of these Iranian peoples live in Iran, Afghanistan, the Caucasus (mainly Ossetia, other parts of Georgia, Dagestan, and Azerbaijan), Iraqi Kurdistan and Kurdish majority populated areas of Turkey, Iran and Syria, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. There are also Iranian peoples living in Eastern Arabia such as northern Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Due to recent migrations, there are also large communities of speakers of Iranian languages in Europe, the Americas.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Iranian culture is today considered to be centered in what is called the "Iranian Plateau", and has its origins tracing back to the Andronovo culture of the late Bronze Age, which is associated with other cultures of the Eurasian Steppe. It was, however, later developed distinguishably from its earlier generations in the Steppe, where a large number of Iranian-speaking peoples (i.e., the Scythians) continued to participate, resulting in a differentiation that is displayed in Iranian mythology as the contrast between Iran and Turan.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Like other Indo-Europeans, the early Iranians practiced ritual sacrifice, had a social hierarchy consisting of warriors, clerics, and farmers, and recounted their deeds through poetic hymns and sagas. Various common traits can be discerned among the Iranian peoples. For instance, the social event of Nowruz is an ancient Iranian festival that is still celebrated by nearly all of the Iranian peoples. However, due to their different environmental adaptations through migration, the Iranian peoples embrace some degrees of diversity in dialect, social system, and other aspects of culture.


title: Iranian peoples

text: With numerous artistic, scientific, architectural, and philosophical achievements and numerous kingdoms and empires that bridged much of the civilized world in antiquity, the Iranian peoples were often in close contact with people from various western and eastern parts of the world.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The early Iranian peoples practiced the ancient Iranian religion, which, like that of other Indo-European peoples, embraced various male and female deities. Fire was regarded as an important and highly sacred element, and also a deity. In ancient Iran, fire was kept with great care in fire temples. Various annual festivals that were mainly related to agriculture and herding were celebrated, the most important of which was the New Year (Nowruz), which is still widely celebrated. Zoroastrianism, a form of the ancient Iranian religion that is still practiced by some communities, was later developed and spread to nearly all of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian Plateau. Other religions that had their origins in the Iranian world were Mithraism, Manichaeism, and Mazdakism, among others. The various religions of the Iranian peoples are believed by some scholars to have been significant early philosophical influences on Christianity and Judaism.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Nowadays, most Iranian people follow Islam (Sunnism, followed by Shi'ism), with minorities following Christianity, Judaism, Mandaeism, Iranian religions and various levels of irreligion.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Iranian languages were and, to a lesser extent, still are spoken in a wide area comprising regions around the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Russia and the northwest of China. This population was linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups, while the sedentary population eventually adopted the Persian language, which began to spread within the region since the time of the Sasanian Empire. The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an "elite dominance" process. Moreover, various Turkic-speaking ethnic groups of the Iranian Plateau are often conversant also in an Iranian language and embrace Iranian culture to the extent that the term "Turko-Iranian" would be applied. A number of Iranian peoples were also intermixed with the Slavs, and many were subjected to Slavicisation.


title: Iranian peoples

text: The following either partially descend from or are sometimes regarded as descendants of the Iranian peoples.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Recent population genomic studies found that the genetic structure of Iranian peoples formed already about 5,000 years ago and show high continuity since then, suggesting that they were largely unaffected by migration events from outside groups. Genetically speaking, Iranian peoples generally cluster closely with European and other Middle Eastern peoples. Analyzed samples of ethnic Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Lurs, Mazanderanis, Gilaks, and Indian Zoroastrians, cluster tightly together, forming a single cluster, known as CIC (Central Iranian cluster). Compared with worldwide populations, Iranians (CIC) cluster in the center of the wider West-Eurasian cluster, close to Europeans, Middle Easterners, and South-Central Asians. Interestingly, Iranian Arabs and Azeris are nearly indistinguishable from other Iranian groups, suggesting that linguistic identity is less relevant within Iran. The genetic substructure of Iranians is surprisingly low and homogeneous, compared with other "1000G" populations. Europeans, and certain South Asians (specifically the Parsi minority) showed the highest affinity with Iranians, while Sub-Saharan Africans and East Asians showed the highest differentiation with Iranians.


title: Iranian peoples

text: Regueiro "et al" (2006) and Grugni "et al" (2012) have performed large-scale sampling of Y chromosome haplogroups of different ethnic groups "within Iran". They found that the most common paternal haplogroups were:


title: Iranian peoples

text: Two large – scale papers by Haber (2012) and Di Cristofaro (2013) analyzed populations from Afghanistan, where several Iranian-speaking groups are native. They found that different groups (e.g. Baluch, Hazara, Pashtun) were quite diverse, yet overall:


title: Iranian peoples

text: A 2012 study by Grugni et al. analyzed the haplogroups of 15 different ethnic groups from Iran. They found that about 31.4% belong to J, 29.1% belong to R, 11.8% belong to G, and 9.2% belong to E. They found that Iranian ethnic groups display high haplogroup diversity, compared to other Middle Easterners. The authors concluded that the Iranian gene pool has been an important source for the Middle Eastern and Eurasian Y chromosome diversity, and the results suggest that there was already rather high Y chromosome diversity during the Neolithic period, placing Iranian populations in between Europeans, Middle Easterners and South Asians.


title: Barbi Benton

text: Barbi Benton (born Barbara Lynn Klein; January 28, 1950) is an American retired model, actress, television personality, and singer. She is known for appearing in "Playboy" magazine, as a four-season regular on the comedy series "Hee Haw", and for recording several modestly successful albums in the 1970s. After the birth of her first child in 1986, Benton retired from show business to raise her family.


title: Barbi Benton

text: Benton was born Barbara Lynn Klein in New York City to a Jewish family. Her father was a gynecologist and her mother worked as an investment counselor.


title: Barbi Benton

text: She grew up in Sacramento and attended Rio Americano High School and took all kinds of lessons – from scuba diving to piano – and even did some "tearoom modeling" while in school. She enrolled into UCLA to become a veterinarian, but had to give up that career option as she could not stand the sight of blood.


title: Barbi Benton

text: At the age of 16, she began to model. Following high school, she attended UCLA, and at age 18 took a job with "Playboy" to appear on their entertainment show "Playboy After Dark". She initially started as an extra on the show, but after host Hugh Hefner fell in love with Benton, her role was quickly elevated to co-host. After recording two episodes, Hefner asked the young co-ed for a date. Upon being asked, she reportedly demurred to the then-42-year-old Hefner: "I don't know, I've never dated anyone over 24 before." To which Hefner replied, "That's all right, neither have I." The two began a relationship that lasted several years, and placed Benton in the center of the Playboy enterprise. Hefner convinced her to change her name from Barbara Klein to the more "marketable" Barbi Benton. She is credited with convincing Hugh Hefner to buy the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills in 1974.


title: Barbi Benton

text: Benton (initially credited as Barbi Klein) appeared on the cover of "Playboy" four times: July 1969, March 1970, May 1972, and December 1985 and in additional nude photo layouts in the December 1973 and January 1975 issues. Though she was featured in a number of photo-essays, she was never a Playmate of the Month. She landed a spot on television's "Hee Haw" doing short comedy sketches, and subsequently enjoyed a career as a country singer. She also began acting, and appeared in the West German comedy film "The Naughty Cheerleader" (1970), before appearing as a featured repeat performer on a number of popular television series, including "The Bobby Vinton Show" in 1976, "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island". Benton lived with Hefner from 1969 until 1976 and is known for discovering the Playboy Mansion West, where Hefner resided until his death in 2017. Years later, when the television series "The Girls Next Door" visited her in Aspen, Colorado, she expressed gratitude that the two had remained friends.


title: Barbi Benton

text: Benton left "Hee Haw" after four seasons to concentrate on a more Hollywood-oriented career. She also starred in the short-lived 1977 ABC-TV comedy series "Sugar Time!", about an aspiring female rock group and in films including the slasher "Hospital Massacre" (1982).


title: Barbi Benton

text: Benton achieved some success as a recording artist. Her record "Brass Buckles" (1975) was a top-five hit on "Billboard's" country singles chart. Benton has recorded eight albums, the last of which she personally produced in 1979. She also composed the songs, sang them, and played piano. One of her better-known songs was "Ain't That Just the Way" (1976). It was a number one hit in Sweden for 5 weeks, was also a major hit for Lutricia McNeal in 1996, and was recorded by the Dutch singer Patricia Paay under the title "Poor Jeremy" in 1977.


title: Barbi Benton

text: Benton married real estate developer George Gradow on October 14, 1979. They have two children, Alexander (born August 23, 1986) and Ariana (born July 13, 1988). They divide their time between homes in Aspen and Los Angeles.


title: Marcia Cross

text: Marcia Anne Cross (born March 25, 1962) is an American actress. She acted in daytime soap operas such as "The Edge of Night", "Another World", and "One Life to Live" before moving to primetime television with a recurring role on "Knots Landing". From 1992 to 1997, she starred as Kimberly Shaw on "Melrose Place". Cross played the role of the housewife Bree Van de Kamp on the ABC television series "Desperate Housewives" (2004–12), for which she was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, and a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She had a recurring role as President Claire Haas on the ABC series "Quantico".


title: Marcia Cross

text: Cross was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and is of English and Irish descent. She is one of three daughters of Janet, a teacher, and Mark J Cross (1923–2021), a personnel manager. Cross was raised Catholic. She graduated from Marlborough High School in 1980 and received a half-scholarship to Juilliard. She completed college in 1984 earning a B.F.A. in Acting. Cross returned to school in 1997 receiving a master's degree in psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles in 2003.


title: Marcia Cross

text: Cross began her television career in 1984 on the soap opera "The Edge of Night", playing the recurring role of Liz Correll. Afterwards, she relocated from New York to Los Angeles, and soon landed roles in television movies such as "The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James", co-starring with Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. In 1986, she joined the cast of the ABC daytime soap opera "One Life to Live", where she played the role of Kate Sanders, until 1987. She followed this with guest-starring roles on primetime shows such as "Who's the Boss?", "Quantum Leap", "Knots Landing" and "Cheers".


title: Marcia Cross

text: In 1992, Cross was cast as Dr. Kimberly Shaw in the Fox primetime soap opera "Melrose Place". She left in the fifth season. She also appeared on the episodes of sitcoms, such as "Seinfeld", "Boy Meets World", "Ally McBeal", "Spin City" and "The King of Queens". Her dramatic roles include appearances on "", "Strong Medicine", "Profiler" and "Touched by an Angel". Her film credits include independent movies "Bad Influence" (1990), "Always Say Goodbye" (1996), "Just Peck" (2009) and "Bringing Up Bobby" (2011). In 2003, Cross spent a season co-starring as Linda Abbott on WB's series "Everwood".


title: Marcia Cross

text: In 2004, Cross starred as role of Bree Van de Kamp in "Desperate Housewives". The show was the breakout hit of the 2004–05 television season, and Cross was nominated for several awards for her role, including an Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and five Screen Actors Guild Awards (winning two with cast). She also received a Satellite Award for her performance in the show's second season. The series ran for eight seasons until it concluded in 2012. In 2014, after two years on hiatus, Cross co-starred as the lead character's mother in the unsuccessful Fox comedy pilot "Fatrick". In 2015, Cross guest starred in an episode of "", and later joined the cast of ABC thriller series "Quantico" playing the recurring role of President Claire Haas, a former Democratic vice presidential nominee.


title: Marcia Cross

text: As a child, Cross showed an early interest in performing. She took piano lessons, dance lessons at the Ceil Sharon School of Dance, and was her high school's mascot at school games. Her first acting role was in grade school, in a play called "The Witch of Blackbird Pond".


title: Marcia Cross

text: Cross was the long-time companion of actor Richard Jordan, who was 25 years her senior; Jordan died from a brain tumor in 1993. In 2006, she married stockbroker Tom Mahoney. Cross underwent in vitro fertilization soon after their wedding, and gave birth to fraternal twin daughters in February 2007, shortly before her 45th birthday.


title: Marcia Cross

text: In September 2018, Cross revealed she had been in remission for eight months after receiving treatment for anal cancer. She explained months later that she had decided to "put a dent in the stigma" because she had discovered through online research that anal cancer patients were embarrassed about their diagnosis. "I found myself in a position where nobody wants this job. Nobody wants to come forward. And I knew that people were suffering and people were ashamed," she said at the 2019 The Atlantic's People v. Cancer event. She advocates for open discussions and further public information about the HPV infection, which can cause cancers of the anus, cervix, ovary, penis, and throat: "In spite of the optics, I care deeply about saving lives. To that end, the important thing to do is educate the public about HPV."


title: Sternum

text: The sternum or breastbone is a long flat bone located in the central part of the chest. It connects to the ribs via cartilage and forms the front of the rib cage, thus helping to protect the heart, lungs, and major blood vessels from injury. Shaped roughly like a necktie, it is one of the largest and longest flat bones of the body. Its three regions are the manubrium, the body, and the xiphoid process. The word "sternum" originates from the Ancient Greek στέρνον (stérnon), meaning "chest".


title: Sternum

text: The sternum is a narrow, flat bone, forming the middle portion of the front of the chest. The top of the sternum supports the clavicles (collarbones) and its edges join with the costal cartilages of the first two pairs of ribs. The inner surface of the sternum is also the attachment of the sternopericardial ligaments. Its top is also connected to the sternocleidomastoid muscle. The sternum consists of three main parts, listed from the top:


title: Sternum

text: In its natural position, the sternum is angled obliquely, downward and forward. It is slightly convex in front and concave behind; broad above, shaped like a "T", becoming narrowed at the point where the manubrium joins the body, after which it again widens a little to below the middle of the body, and then narrows to its lower extremity. In adults the sternum is on average about 17 cm, longer in the male than in the female.


title: Sternum

text: The manubrium (Latin for "handle") is the broad upper part of the sternum. It has a quadrangular shape, narrowing from the top, which gives it four borders. The suprasternal notch (jugular notch) is located in the middle at the upper broadest part of the manubrium. This notch can be felt between the two clavicles. On either side of this notch are the right and left clavicular notches.


title: Sternum

text: The manubrium joins with the body of the sternum, the clavicles and the cartilages of the first pair of ribs. The inferior border, oval and rough, is covered with a thin layer of cartilage for articulation with the body. The lateral borders are each marked above by a depression for the first costal cartilage, and below by a small facet, which, with a similar facet on the upper angle of the body, forms a notch for the reception of the costal cartilage of the second rib. Between the depression for the first costal cartilage and the demi-facet for the second is a narrow, curved edge, which slopes from above downward towards the middle. Also, the superior sternopericardial ligament attaches the pericardium to the posterior side of the manubrium.


title: Sternum

text: The body, or gladiolus, is the longest sternal part. It is flat and considered to have only a front and back surface. It is flat on the front, directed upward and forward, and marked by three transverse ridges which cross the bone opposite the third, fourth, and fifth articular depressions. The pectoralis major attaches to it on either side. At the junction of the third and fourth parts of the body is occasionally seen an orifice, the sternal foramen, of varying size and form. The posterior surface, slightly concave, is also marked by three transverse lines, less distinct, however, than those in front; from its lower part, on either side, the transversus thoracis takes origin.


title: Sternum

text: The sternal angle is located at the point where the body joins the manubrium. The sternal angle can be felt at the point where the sternum projects farthest forward. However, in some people the sternal angle is concave or rounded. During physical examinations, the sternal angle is a useful landmark because the second rib attaches here.


title: Sternum

text: Each outer border, at its superior angle, has a small facet, which with a similar facet on the manubrium, forms a cavity for the cartilage of the second rib; below this are four angular depressions which receive the cartilages of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs. The inferior angle has a small facet, which, with a corresponding one on the xiphoid process, forms a notch for the cartilage of the seventh rib. These articular depressions are separated by a series of curved interarticular intervals, which diminish in length from above downward, and correspond to the intercostal spaces. Most of the cartilages belonging to the true ribs, articulate with the sternum at the lines of junction of its primitive component segments. This is well seen in some other vertebrates, where the parts of the bone remain separated for longer.


title: Sternum

text: The upper border is oval and articulates with the manubrium, at the sternal angle. The lower border is narrow, and articulates with the xiphoid process.


title: Sternum

text: Located at the inferior end of the sternum is the pointed xiphoid process. Improperly performed chest compressions during cardiopulmonary resuscitation can cause the xiphoid process to snap off, driving it into the liver which can cause a fatal hemorrhage.


title: Sternum

text: The sternum is composed of highly vascular tissue, covered by a thin layer of compact bone which is thickest in the manubrium between the articular facets for the clavicles. The inferior sternopericardial ligament attaches the pericardium to the posterior xiphoid process.


title: Sternum

text: The cartilages of the top five ribs join with the sternum at the sternocostal joints. The right and left clavicular notches articulate with the right and left clavicles, respectively. The costal cartilage of the second rib articulates with the sternum at the sternal angle making it easy to locate.


title: Sternum

text: The transversus thoracis muscle is innervated by one of the intercostal nerves and superiorly attaches at the posterior surface of the lower sternum. Its inferior attachment is the internal surface of costal cartilages two through six and works to depress the ribs.


title: Sternum

text: The sternum develops from two cartilaginous bars one on the left and one on the right, connected with the cartilages of the ribs on each side. These two bars fuse together along the middle to form the cartilaginous sternum which is ossified from six centers: one for the manubrium, four for the body, and one for the xiphoid process.


title: Sternum

text: The ossification centers appear in the intervals between the articular depressions for the costal cartilages, in the following order: in the manubrium and first piece of the body, during the sixth month of fetal life; in the second and third pieces of the body, during the seventh month of fetal life; in its fourth piece, during the first year after birth; and in the xiphoid process, between the fifth and eighteenth years.


title: Sternum

text: The centers make their appearance at the upper parts of the segments, and proceed gradually downward. To these may be added the occasional existence of two small "episternal" centers, which make their appearance one on either side of the jugular notch; they are probably vestiges of the episternal bone of the monotremata and lizards.


title: Sternum

text: Occasionally some of the segments are formed from more than one center, the number and position of which vary [Fig. 6]. Thus, the first piece may have two, three, or even six centers.


title: Sternum

text: When two are present, they are generally situated one above the other, the upper being the larger; the second piece has seldom more than one; the third, fourth, and fifth pieces are often formed from two centers placed laterally, the irregular union of which explains the rare occurrence of the sternal foramen [Fig. 7], or of the vertical fissure which occasionally intersects this part of the bone constituting the malformation known as "fissura sterni;" these conditions are further explained by the manner in which the cartilaginous sternum is formed.


title: Sternum

text: More rarely still the upper end of the sternum may be divided by a fissure. Union of the various centers of the body begins about puberty, and proceeds from below upward [Fig. 5]; by the age of 25 they are all united.


title: Sternum

text: The xiphoid process may become joined to the body before the age of thirty, but this occurs more frequently after forty; on the other hand, it sometimes remains ununited in old age. In advanced life the manubrium is occasionally joined to the body by bone. When this takes place, however, the bony tissue is generally only superficial, the central portion of the intervening cartilage remaining unossified.


title: Sternum

text: In early life, the sternum's body is divided into four segments, not three, called "sternebrae" (singular: "sternebra").


title: Sternum

text: In 2.5–13.5% of the population, a foramen known as sternal foramen may be presented at the lower third of the sternal body. In extremely rare cases, multiple foramina may be observed. Fusion of the manubriosternal joint also occurs in around 5% of the population. Small ossicles known as episternal ossicles may also be present posterior to the superior end of the manubrium. Another variant called suprasternal tubercle is formed when the episternal ossicles fuse with the manubrium.


title: Sternum

text: Because the sternum contains bone marrow, it is sometimes used as a site for bone marrow biopsy. In particular, patients with a high BMI (obese or grossly overweight) may present with excess tissue that makes access to traditional marrow biopsy sites such as the pelvis difficult.


title: Sternum

text: A somewhat rare congenital disorder of the sternum sometimes referred to as an anatomical variation is a sternal foramen, a single round hole in the sternum that is present from birth and usually is off-centered to the right or left, commonly forming in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th segments of the breastbone body. Congenital sternal foramina can often be mistaken for bullet holes. They are usually without symptoms but can be problematic if acupuncture in the area is intended.


title: Sternum

text: Fractures of the sternum are rather uncommon. They may result from trauma, such as when a driver's chest is forced into the steering column of a car in a car accident. A fracture of the sternum is usually a comminuted fracture. The most common site of sternal fractures is at the sternal angle. Some studies reveal that repeated punches or continual beatings, sometimes called "breastbone punches", to the sternum area have also caused fractured sternums. Those are known to have occurred in contact sports such as hockey and football. Sternal fractures are frequently associated with underlying injuries such as pulmonary contusions, or bruised lung tissue.


title: Sternum

text: A manubriosternal dislocation is rare and usually caused by severe trauma. It may also result from minor trauma where there is a precondition of arthritis.


title: Sternum

text: The breastbone is sometimes cut open (a median sternotomy) to gain access to the thoracic contents when performing cardiothoracic surgery.


title: Sternum

text: The sternum can be totally removed (resected) as part of a radical surgery, usually to surgically treat a malignancy, either with or without a mediastinal lymphadenectomy (Current Procedural Terminology codes # 21632 and # 21630, respectively).


title: Sternum

text: A bifid sternum is an extremely rare congenital abnormality caused by the fusion failure of the sternum. This condition results in sternal cleft which can be observed at birth without any symptom.


title: Sternum

text: The sternum, in vertebrate anatomy, is a flat bone that lies in the middle front part of the rib cage. It is endochondral in origin. It probably first evolved in early tetrapods as an extension of the pectoral girdle; it is not found in fish. In amphibians and reptiles it is typically a shield-shaped structure, often composed entirely of cartilage. It is absent in both turtles and snakes. In birds it is a relatively large bone and typically bears an enormous projecting keel to which the flight muscles are attached. Only in mammals does the sternum take on the elongated, segmented form seen in humans.


title: Sternum

text: In arachnids, the sternum is the ventral (lower) portion of the cephalothorax. It consists of a single sclerite situated between the coxa, opposite the carapace.


title: Sternum

text: English "sternum" is a translation of Ancient Greek , '. The Greek writer Homer used the term to refer to the "male chest", and the term , ' to refer to the "chest of both sexes". The Greek physician Hippocrates used στέρνον to refer to the "chest", and στῆθος to the "breastbone". The Greek physician Galen was the first to use in the present meaning of "breastbone".


title: Sternum

text: The sternum as the solid bony part of the chest can be related to Ancient Greek , "()", meaning "firm" or "solid". The English term breastbone is actually more like the Latin "os pectoris", derived from classical Latin "os", bone and "pectus", chest or breast. Confusingly, "pectus" is also used in classical Latin as "breastbone".


title: YouTube Kids

text: YouTube Kids is an American video app and website for children developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. The app provides a version of the service oriented solely towards children, with curated selections of content, parental control features, and filtering of videos deemed inappropriate for viewing by children under the age of 13, in accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.


title: YouTube Kids

text: First released on February 15, 2015, as an Android and iOS mobile app, the app has since been released for LG, Samsung, and Sony smart TVs, as well as for Android TV. On May 27, 2020, it became available on Apple TV. As of September 2019, the app is available in 69 countries. YouTube launched a web-based version of YouTube Kids on August 30, 2019.


title: YouTube Kids

text: YouTube Kids has faced criticism from advocacy groups, particularly the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, for concerns surrounding the app's use of commercial advertising, as well as algorithmic suggestions of videos that may be inappropriate for the app's target audience, as the app has been associated with a controversy surrounding disturbing and/or violent videos depicting characters from children's media franchises. Criticism over the videos led YouTube to announce that it would take more stringent actions to review and filter such videos when reported by the community, and prevent them from being accessible from within the YouTube Kids app.


title: YouTube Kids

text: The app is divided into four content categories; "Recommended", "Shows", "Music", and "Learning". The categories feature curated selections of content from channels deemed appropriate for children.


title: YouTube Kids

text: In August 2016, the app was updated to support the YouTube Red (now YouTube Premium) subscription service, allowing ad-free playback, background playback, and offline playback for subscribers. In February 2017, YouTube began to introduce premium original series oriented specifically towards YouTube Kids, including "DanTDM Creates a Big Scene", "", "Hyperlinked", and "Kings of Atlantis". YouTube has also presented advocacy campaigns through special playlists featured on YouTube Kids, including "#ReadAlong" (a series of videos, primarily featuring kinetic typography) to promote literacy, "#TodayILearned" (which featured a playlist of STEM-oriented programs and videos), and "Make it Healthy, Make it Fun" (a collaboration with Marc and Pau Gasol to promote healthy living and an active lifestyle to children).


title: YouTube Kids

text: In November 2017, the app was updated to add additional user interface modes designed for different age groups, ranging from the existing simplified interface (intended for younger children), to a more dense interface designed for older children.


title: YouTube Kids

text: In September 2018, YouTube added new age group options relating to content offered in the app, "Younger" and "Older". "Younger" maintains the existing mix of content offered before, and "Older" adds more content from other genres, such as nature, gaming, and music. In August 2019, the "Younger" setting was split to add a new "Preschool" group, with a focus on "creativity, playfulness, learning, and exploration".


title: YouTube Kids

text: The YouTube Kids app features parental control settings which allow parents to limit screen time, and restrict users from accessing the search tool. Parents can use a passcode or their Google account to protect these settings, and configure profiles for multiple users to tailor their experiences.


title: YouTube Kids

text: The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) both expressed concern over the use of advertising within the YouTube Kids app, arguing that children would not be able to distinguish the ads from content. Short bumpers were later added to the app in order to establish a separation between advertising and content.


title: YouTube Kids

text: The YouTube Kids app has faced criticism over the accessibility of videos that are inappropriate for its target audience. The CCFC filed an FTC complaint over YouTube Kids shortly after its release, citing examples of inappropriate videos that were accessible via the app's search tool (such as those related to wine in their testing), and the Recommended page eventually using search history to surface such videos. YouTube defended the criticism, stating that it was developed in consultation with other advocacy groups, and that the company was open to feedback over the app's operation. A larger YouTube controversy referred to as "Elsagate" discovered by Matan Uziel and Charlie Warzel has also been associated with the app, referring to channels which post videos featuring characters from popular franchises (especially, among others, "Frozen", "PAW Patrol," "Thomas and Friends," "Peppa Pig", and "Spider-Man"), but with disturbing, sexually suggestive, violent, or otherwise inappropriate themes and content.


title: YouTube Kids

text: YouTube global head of family and children's content Malik Ducard admitted that "making the app family friendly is of the utmost importance to us", but admitted that the service was not curated all the time, and that parents had the responsibility to use the app's parental controls to control how it is used by their children (including disabling access to the search tool). Josh Golin, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, argued that automated algorithms were not enough to determine whether a video is age-appropriate, and that the process required manual curation. He added that "the YouTube model has created something, which is so vast, but there are 400 hours of content are uploaded every minute. It's simply too big. People have been raising these issues for years, just visit any parenting forum and they’ve been talking about the fake "Peppa Pig" videos."


title: YouTube Kids

text: In November 2017, YouTube announced that it would take further steps to review and filter videos reported by users as containing inappropriate content, including more stringent use of its filtering and age-restriction system to prevent such videos from appearing on the app and YouTube proper. In an update to the YouTube Kids app that month, a more prominent disclaimer was added to its first-time setup process, stating that the service can not fully guarantee the appropriateness of videos that were not manually curated, and informing parents of means to report and block videos that they do not find suitable.


title: YouTube Kids

text: These options expanded further in 2018, with the addition of an option to restrict users to human-reviewed channels and recommendations, as well as a manual whitelisting system.


title: YouTube Kids

text: Algeria, Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (excluding Quebec), Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ghana, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe.


title: YouTube Kids

text: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (excluding Quebec), Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Egypt, El Salvador, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Nicaragua, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, United States, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe


title: YouTube Kids

text: Algeria, American Samoa, Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Ghana, Georgia, Guam, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Northern Mariana Islands, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vatican City, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe.


title: YouTube Kids

text: Argentina, Aruba (Android TV only), Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh (Android TV only), Belarus, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (excluding Quebec), Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ghana, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro (Apple TV and Smart TVs only), Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.


title: YouTube Kids

text: YouTube Kids will be available in the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Haiti, Moldova, Montenegro, Puerto Rico and Tajikistan in the future.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya Stark is a fictional character in American author George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" epic fantasy novel series, and its television adaptation "Game of Thrones", where she is portrayed by English actress Maisie Williams. She is a prominent point-of-view character in the novels with the third most viewpoint chapters, and is the only viewpoint character to have appeared in every published book of the series. In later-series POVs, her chapter titles have various names such as Cat of the Canals, The Blind Girl, The Ugly Little Girl and Mercy.


title: Arya Stark

text: Introduced in 1996's "A Game of Thrones", Arya is the third child and youngest daughter of Lord Ned Stark and his wife Lady Catelyn Stark. She is tomboyish, headstrong, feisty, independent, disdains traditional female pursuits, and is often mistaken for a boy. She wields a castle-forged steel smallsword named "Needle" forged by Mikken the blacksmith of Winterfell, as a parting gift from her half-brother Jon Snow, and is trained in the Braavosi style of sword fighting by Syrio Forel.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya is among the most popular characters in the series. Williams' performance has received critical acclaim. Williams was twice nominated for a Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2016 and 2019. She and the rest of the cast were nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya was born in 289 AC ("After (Aegon's) Conquest") as the third child and youngest daughter of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn Stark of Winterfell, the ruling liege of the North, and is nine years old at the beginning of the book series and 11 in season 1 of the show. She has five siblings: an older brother Robb, an older sister Sansa, two younger brothers Bran and Rickon, and an older illegitimate half-brother, Jon Snow. Through her mother, she is also first cousin to Robert Arryn, the lord paramount of The Vale; and the niece of Edmure Tully, the lord paramount of the Riverlands.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya is left-handed and talented in sums and housekeeping. In contrast to her older sister Sansa, who is more praised for favoring activities traditionally befitting a noblewoman, Arya shows no interest in the ladylike dancing, singing and sewing, and revels in outdoor activities and exploring, and is an excellent horserider. She is described as "wolf-blooded", blunt, impulsive and "always difficult to tame" by her mother Catelyn, proven to be a constant source of headache for her household tutor Septa Mordane, and given the nickname "Arya Underfoot" by the guards of Winterfell. Socially an outcast, she is particularly close to her bastard half-brother Jon Snow, who encourages her and gives her a smallsword as a parting gift. The sword, which Arya names "Needle" after her dreaded embroidery lessons, is well suited to her slender build and favoring the Braavosi "Water Dance" (fencing) style of swordplay which emphasizes speed and agility with quick thrusting attacks. Throughout her travels, Arya displays great resourcefulness and cunning and also becomes increasingly ruthless.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya is the only one out of her full-siblings to inherit the Stark features of lean athletic physique, brown hair, grey eyes and long face (for which she was teased as "Horseface" by Sansa's companions), and is said to resemble her late aunt Lyanna in both looks and temperament. At the start of the series, she is prepubescent and generally regarded as messy and plain-looking, and often mistaken for a boy; but there are multiple instances in the books comparing her (favorably) to the famously beautiful Lyanna, and frequently catching the eyes of men (to the point of harassment) when her body starts to develop later in the series. She is also a powerful skinchanger, developing purely on her own instinct the ability to telepathically control her direwolf Nymeria when sleeping (even from a different continent), as well as a psychic bond with a street tomcat in Braavos.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya adopts one of the direwolf cubs that her brothers Robb and Jon discovered in the wild, and names her "Nymeria" after a legendary Rhoynish warrior queen. She travels with her father, Eddard, to King's Landing when he is made Hand of the King. Before she leaves, her half-brother Jon Snow has a Braavosi-style smallsword made for her as a parting gift, which she names "Needle" after her least favorite ladylike activity.


title: Arya Stark

text: While taking a walk together, Prince Joffrey and her sister Sansa happen upon Arya and her friend, the low-born butchers son Mycah, sparring in the woods with broomsticks. Arya defends Mycah from Joffrey's torments and her direwolf Nymeria helps Arya fight off Joffrey, wounding his arm in the process. Knowing that Nymeria will likely be killed in retribution, Arya chases her wolf away; but Sansa's direwolf Lady is killed in Nymeria's stead and Mycah is hunted down and killed by Sandor Clegane, Joffrey's bodyguard.


title: Arya Stark

text: In King's Landing, her father discovers Arya's possession of Needle, but instead of confiscating it he arranges for sword fighting lessons under the Braavosi swordmaster Syrio Forel, who teaches her the style of fighting known as "water dancing". After her father's arrest, Syrio is killed protecting her and Arya narrowly escapes capture. In her escape, she kills her first person, a stable hand who was going to turn her in to the queen, Cersei Lannister. She later witnesses the public execution of her father before falling under the protection of the Night's Watch recruiter Yoren.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya escapes King's Landing with Yoren and his party of recruits where she pretends to be a boy named Arry; on the road, she clashes with the other Night's Watch child recruits Lommy, Gendry, and Hot Pie, but eventually befriends them. On the way, the party is attacked by Amory Lorch when Yoren refuses to yield Gendry, who is actually a bastard son of the late King Robert, to the Lannisters. The Night's Watch convoy is overrun and massacred, but Arya and the other children escape through a tunnel. Before escaping, she rescues three prisoners locked in a wagon cage, among them a mysterious man named Jaqen H'ghar.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya and her friends are later captured by Ser Gregor Clegane and taken to Harrenhal as slave laborers. After witnessing the torture and death of her fellow prisoners, Arya begins nightly reciting the names of the people upon whom she wishes to exact revenge. At Harrenhal she re-encounters Jaqen, now under the employ of the Lannisters, who offers to kill for her any three people she names; whereupon she names two people who hurt her at Harrenhal. When Jaqen asks her to name the last target, Arya extorts him to help her free northern prisoners by naming Jaqen himself as the third person. In order to get Arya to retract the name, Jaqen stages a massive prison riot that overwhelms the Lannister garrison. Afterwards, Jaqen offers to take Arya with him, but Arya expresses a wish to go home, so he gives Arya a strange Braavosi iron coin to ensure her induction into his guild, the Faceless Men, and tells her to remember the passphrase ""Valar Morghulis"" ("All men must die" in High Valyrian) before leaving. The next morning Roose Bolton captures the castle, and Arya becomes his personal cupbearer. Eventually, Arya escapes Harrenhal with her friends Gendry and Hot Pie after killing a guard.


title: Arya Stark

text: While Arya and her companions are making their way north, she begins dreaming of her lost direwolf, Nymeria. Later, she and her companions are discovered by the guerrilla group, the Brotherhood Without Banners, and is recognized as Arya Stark. At the Brotherhood's secret base, Arya encounters Sandor Clegane, where she accuses him of Mycah's murder; but the Hound survives a trial by combat and is released.


title: Arya Stark

text: Arya eventually escapes the Brotherhood alone, but is captured by the Hound, who plans to return her to her family for a ransom. They reach the Twins just as her brother and mother are killed during the Red Wedding, and Sandor knocks her unconscious to prevent her from being killed. A few nights later, Arya skinchanges into Nymeria during sleep and pulls her mother's corpse out of the river for the Brotherhood to find. Later, Sandor plans to ransom her to her aunt Lysa at the Vale, but is unable to proceed due to the weather, so he decides to instead take her to her great-uncle Brynden Tully. On the way to Riverrun, they encounter two men on Arya's death list, Tickler and Polliver, who were both Gregor Clegane's men-at-arms at Harrenhal. In the ensuing fight, Arya personally stabs Tickler to death and reclaims her sword Needle from Polliver's corpse, but Sandor is severely injured. When Sandor becomes gravely ill from his wounds, Arya refuses to kill him and abandons him to die under a tree by the Trident river. She travels to the port town Saltpan and gains passage to Braavos on a merchant galleass, "Titan's Daughter", by presenting the ship's captain with the iron coin that Jaqen gave her along with the Valyrian phrase ""Valar Morghulis"."


title: Arya Stark

text: Arriving in Braavos, Arya makes her way to the headquarters of the Faceless Men, the House of Black and White, where she is initiated into the guild by a priest in charge, whom she calls "the Kindly Man". The Kindly Man orders her to dispose of all her past possessions, and she complies by throwing them all in the river but still secretly hides her sword Needle, which is the one thing reminding her of sweet childhood memories. For her training, Arya adopts the identity of "Cat of the Canal", a street child who helps sell seafood, and continues having increased and more frequent vivid wolf-dreams, which further prevents her from discarding her old identity. During her training, she briefly meets, and saves, Samwell Tarly and later murders the Night's Watch deserter Dareon. After admitting her unauthorized killing to her mentor, she is given a cup of "burnt-tasting" milk to drink; and the next morning, she wakes up blind.