title: Succulent plant

text: Some who grow succulents as a hobby may use the term in a different way from botanists. In horticultural use, the term "succulent" regularly excludes cacti. For example, Jacobsen's three volume "Handbook of Succulent Plants" does not include cacti. Many books covering the cultivation of these plants include "cacti and succulents" as the title or part of the title. However, in botanical terminology, cacti are succulents, but not the reverse as many succulent plants are not cacti. Cacti form a monophyletic group and apart from one species are native only to the New World (the Americas), but through parallel evolution similar looking plants in completely different families like the Apocynaceae evolved in the Old World.


title: Succulent plant

text: A further difficulty for general identification is that plant families are neither "succulent" nor "non-succulent" and can contain both. In many genera and families, there is a continuous gradation from plants with thin leaves and normal stems to those with very clearly thickened and fleshy leaves or stems. The "succulent" characteristic becomes meaningless for dividing plants into genera and families. Different sources may classify the same species differently.


title: Succulent plant

text: Horticulturists often follow commercial conventions and may exclude other groups of plants such as bromeliads, that scientifically are considered succulents. A practical horticultural definition has become "a succulent plant is any desert plant that a succulent plant collector wishes to grow", without any consideration of scientific classifications. Commercial presentations of "succulent" plants will present those that customers commonly identify as such. Plants offered commercially then as "succulents" (such as hen and chicks), will less often include geophytes (in which the swollen storage organ is wholly underground), but will include plants with a caudex, that is a swollen above-ground organ at soil level, formed from a stem, a root, or both.


title: Succulent plant

text: The storage of water often gives succulent plants a more swollen or fleshy appearance than other plants, a characteristic known as succulence. In addition to succulence, succulent plants variously have other water-saving features. These may include:


title: Succulent plant

text: Other than in Antarctica, succulents can be found within each continent. According to the World Wildlife Fund, South Africa is home to around a third of all succulent species. While it is often thought that most succulents come from dry areas such as steppes, semi-desert, and desert, the world's driest areas do not make for proper succulent habitats, mainly due to the difficulty such low growing plants or seedlings would have to thrive in environments where they could easily be covered by sand. Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, hosts very few native succulents due to the frequent and prolonged droughts. Even Africa, the continent with the most native succulents, does not host many of the plants in its most dry regions. However, while succulents are unable to grow in these harshest of conditions, they are able to grow in conditions that are uninhabitable by other plants. In fact, many succulents are able to thrive in dry conditions, and some are able to last up to two years without water depending on their surroundings and adaptations. Occasionally, succulents may occur as epiphytes, growing on other plants with limited or no contact with the ground, and being dependent on their ability to store water and gaining nutrients by other means; it is seen in "Tillandsia". Succulents also occur as inhabitants of sea coasts and dry lakes, which are exposed to high levels of dissolved minerals that are deadly to many other plant species. California is home to close to hundred succulent species that are native to the state, many of them live in coastal environments. Potted succulents are able to grow in most indoor environments with minimal care.


title: Succulent plant

text: In South Africa, several species have been threatened with extinction due to poaching from the wild for the black market and mining related activities. The plants are mainly sold to collectors in Asian countries, where there has been a high demand for them. It is illegal since 1974 to be in possession of protected succulents such as the "Conophytum" without authorisation in the Western Cape and Northern Cape, the two South African provinces where they grow.


title: Succulent plant

text: For some families and subfamilies, most members are succulent; for example the Cactaceae, Agavoideae, Aizoaceae, and Crassulaceae.


title: Succulent plant

text: The table below shows the number of succulent species found in some families and their native habitat:


title: Succulent plant

text: Succulents are favored as houseplants for their attractiveness and ease of care. They have been cultivated as houseplants since at least the 17th century. If properly potted, succulents require little maintenance to survive indoors. Succulents are very adaptable houseplants and will thrive in a range of indoor conditions. For most plant owners, over-watering and associated infections are the main cause of death in succulents.


title: Succulent plant

text: Succulents can be propagated by different means. The most common is vegetative propagation; this includes "cuttings" where several inches of stem with leaves are cut and after healing, produce a callus. After a week or so, roots may grow. A second method is "division" consisting of uprooting an overgrown clump and pulling the stems and roots apart. A third method is propagation by leaf by allowing the formation of a callus. During this method, a bottom leaf is fully removed from the plant often by twisting or cutting. The leaf then dries out and a callus forms preventing the leaf from absorbing too much moisture and thus rotting. This method typically takes up to a few weeks to produce healthy roots that would eventually create new plants. The vegetative propagation can be different according to the species.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Anna-Lou Leibovitz ( ; born October 2, 1949) is an American portrait photographer best known for her engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. Leibovitz's Polaroid photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken five hours before Lennon's murder, is considered one of "Rolling Stone" magazine's most famous cover photographs. The Library of Congress declared her a Living Legend, and she is the first woman to have a feature exhibition at Washington's National Portrait Gallery.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on October 2, 1949, Anna-Lou Leibovitz is the third of six children of Marilyn Edith (née Heit) and Samuel Leibovitz. She is a third-generation American. Her father was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force of Romanian-Jewish heritage and her mother was a modern dance instructor of Estonian-Jewish heritage. The family moved frequently with her father's duty assignments, and she took her first pictures when he was stationed in the Philippines during the Vietnam War. Leibovitz's passion for art was born out of her mother's engagement with dance, music, and painting.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: While attending Northwood High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, she became interested in various artistic endeavors and began to write and play music.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Leibovitz attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied painting with the intention of becoming an art teacher. At school, she had her first photography workshop and changed her major to photography. She was inspired by the work of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. For several years, she continued to develop her photography skills while holding various jobs, including a stint on a kibbutz in Amir, Israel, for several months in 1969.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: For many years Leibovitz's camera of choice was a Mamiya RZ67. She also has used the following cameras:


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: When Leibovitz returned to the United States in 1970, she started her career as staff photographer for "Rolling Stone" magazine. In 1973, publisher Jann Wenner named Leibovitz chief photographer of "Rolling Stone", a job she would hold for 10 years. Leibovitz worked for the magazine until 1983, and her intimate photographs of celebrities helped define the "Rolling Stone" look.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: While working for "Rolling Stone", Leibovitz learned that she could work for magazines and still create personal work of her family, which for her was the most important: "You don't get the opportunity to do this kind of intimate work except with the people you love, the people who will put up with you. They're the people who open their hearts and souls and lives to you. You must take care of them."


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Leibovitz photographed the Rolling Stones in San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and served as the concert-tour photographer for the Rolling Stones' Tour of the Americas '75. Her favorite photo from the tour was a photo of Mick Jagger in an elevator.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: On December 8, 1980, Leibovitz had a photo shoot with John Lennon for "Rolling Stone", and she promised him he would make the cover. She had initially tried to get a picture with just Lennon alone, as "Rolling Stone" wanted, but Lennon insisted that both he and Yoko Ono be on the cover. Leibovitz then tried to re-create something like the kissing scene from the couple's "Double Fantasy" album cover, a picture Leibovitz loved. She had John remove his clothes and curl up next to Yoko on the floor. Leibovitz recalls,


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Leibovitz was the last person to professionally photograph Lennon—he was shot and killed five hours later. A month or so later, "Rolling Stone" magazine gave grieving music fans his "last image".


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: The photograph was subsequently re-created in 2009 by John and Yoko's son Sean Lennon posing with his girlfriend Charlotte Kemp Muhl, with male/female roles reversed (Sean clothed, Kemp naked), and by Henry Bond and Sam Taylor-Wood in their YBA pastiche October 26, 1993.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Leibovitz's new style of lighting and use of bold colors and poses got her a position with "Vanity Fair" magazine in 1983.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Leibovitz photographed celebrities for an international advertising campaign for American Express charge cards, which won a Clio award in 1987.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In 1991, Leibovitz mounted an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She was the second living portraitist and first woman to show there. That same year, Leibovitz was also made Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. Also in 1991, Leibovitz emulated Margaret Bourke-White's feat by mounting one of the eagle gargoyles on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, where she photographed the dancer David Parsons cavorting on another eagle gargoyle. Noted "Life" photographer and picture editor John Loengard made a gripping photo of Leibovitz at the climax of her danger (Loengard was photographing Leibovitz for "The New York Times" that day).


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In 2007, a major retrospective of Leibovitz's work was held at the Brooklyn Museum. The retrospective was based on her book, "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005" and included many of her professional (celebrity) photographs and numerous personal photographs of her family, children, and partner Susan Sontag. This show, which was expanded to include three official portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, then went on the road for seven stops. It was on display at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from October 2007 to January 2008 and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco from March 2008 to May 2008. In February 2009, the exhibition was moved to Berlin, Germany. The show included 200 photographs. This exhibition and her talk focused on her personal photographs and life.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In 2015, Leibovitz was the principal photographer for the 2016 Pirelli calendar. Leibovitz took a drastic shift from the calendar traditional style by focusing on admirable women as opposed to sexuality. The calendar included Amy Schumer, Serena Williams, and Patti Smith. Leibovitz had previously worked on the 2000 calendar.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In 2007, the BBC misrepresented Leibovitz's portrait shooting of Queen Elizabeth II to take the Queen's official picture for her state visit to Virginia. This was filmed for the BBC documentary "A Year with the Queen". A promotional trailer for the film showed the Queen reacting incredulously to Leibovitz's suggestion ("less dressy") that she remove her tiara, stating "less dressy? What do you think this is?" This cut immediately to a scene of the Queen walking down a corridor, telling an aide "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this, thank you very much." The BBC later apologized and admitted that the sequence of events had been misrepresented, as the Queen was in fact walking to the sitting in the second scene, not storming off from it like the BBC implied by presenting the scenes in that order. This led to a BBC scandal and a shake-up of ethics training. However, a 2015 "London Times" article contradicts this story. It stated that the Queen was both incredulous at being asked to remove her crown as "no-one tells her what to do" and insulted, as the item was only a tiara.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In 2008, Leibovitz choreographed a photoshoot featuring LeBron James and Gisele Bündchen that graced the cover of "Vogue". The cover was the first time a black man ever appeared on "Vogue". The cover drew controversy due to its depiction of James posing with his hand around Bündchen's waist, similar to that of a poster of "King Kong" holding onto Fay Wray. Jemele Hill and many others acknowledged the gorilla-like pose plays on racial stereotypes. Magazine analyst Samir Husni believed the photo to be deliberately provocative, adding on "Today", "So when you have a cover that reminds people of King Kong and brings those stereotypes to the front, black man wanting white woman, it's not innocent". "The Fashion Post" magazine named it one of the most controversial "Vogue" magazine covers, ranking it number 3.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: On April 25, 2008, "Entertainment Tonight" reported that 15-year-old Miley Cyrus had posed topless for a photo shoot with "Vanity Fair". The photograph and subsequently released behind-the-scenes photographs show Cyrus topless, her bare back exposed but her front covered with a bedsheet. The photo was taken by Leibovitz. The full photograph was published with an accompanying story on "The New York Times" website on April 27, 2008. On April 29, 2008, "The New York Times" clarified: though the pictures left an impression that she was bare-breasted, Cyrus was wrapped in a bedsheet and was actually not topless. Some parents expressed outrage at the nature of the photograph, which a Disney spokesperson described as "a situation [that] was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines". In response to the Internet circulation of the photo and ensuing media attention, Cyrus released a statement of apology on April 27: "I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about." Leibovitz also released a statement saying: "I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted... The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Leibovitz has three daughters. Her first, Sarah Cameron Leibovitz, was born in October 2001 when Leibovitz was 52 years old. Twin girls Susan and Samuelle were born to a surrogate mother in May 2005.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: Leibovitz had a close relationship with writer and essayist Susan Sontag from 1989 until Sontag's death in 2004. During Sontag's lifetime, neither woman publicly disclosed whether the relationship was a platonic friendship or romantic. In 2006, "Newsweek" magazine made reference to Leibovitz's decade-plus relationship with Sontag, stating, "The two first met in the late '80s, when Leibovitz photographed her for a book jacket. They never lived together, though they each had an apartment within view of the other's." When Leibovitz was interviewed for her autobiography "A Photographer's Life: 19902005", she said that the book told a number of stories, and "with Susan, it was a love story." While "The New York Times" in 2009 referred to Sontag as Leibovitz's "companion", Leibovitz wrote in "A Photographer's Life": "words like 'companion' and 'partner' were not in our vocabulary. We were two people who helped each other through our lives. The closest word is still 'friend'." That same year, Leibovitz said the descriptor "lover" was accurate. She later reiterated: "Call us 'lovers'. I like 'lovers.' You know, 'lovers' sounds romantic. I mean, I want to be perfectly clear. I love Susan."


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: When asked if being Jewish is important to her, Leibovitz replied, "I'm not a practicing Jew, but I feel very Jewish."


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In February 2009, Leibovitz borrowed , after having experienced financial challenges, putting up several houses as well as the rights to all of her photographs as collateral. "The New York Times" noted that "one of the world's most successful photographers essentially pawned every snap of the shutter she had made or will make until the loans are paid off", and that, despite a archive, Leibovitz had a "long history of less than careful financial dealings" and "a recent series of personal issues" including the loss of her parents and the 2004 death of Sontag, as well as the addition of two children to her family, and controversial renovation of three Greenwich Village properties.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: The Greenwich Village properties, at 755757 Greenwich Street, are part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, and thus the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission must review and approve any work done to the buildings. However, work initiated on the buildings in October 2002, without a permit, began a chain of destruction of those buildings and the neighbor's at 311 W 11th Street. Due to pressure from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and other groups, the buildings were finally stabilized, though the preservation group criticized the eventual repairs as shoddy and historically insensitive.


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In July 2009, the Art Capital Group filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Leibovitz for regarding repayment of these loans. In a follow-up article from September 5, 2009, an Associated Press story quoted legal experts as saying that filing for bankruptcy reorganization might offer Leibovitz her best chance to control and direct the disposition of her assets to satisfy debts. On September 11, Art Capital Group withdrew its lawsuit against Leibovitz and extended the due date for repayment of the loan. Under the agreement, Leibovitz retains control over her work and will be the "exclusive agent in the sale of her real property (land) and copyrights".


title: Annie Leibovitz

text: In March 2010, Colony Capital concluded a new financing and marketing agreement with Leibovitz, paying off Art Capital and removing or reducing the risks to Leibovitz of losing her artistic works and real estate. The following month, Brunswick Capital Partners sued Leibovitz, claiming it was owed several hundred thousand dollars for helping her restructure her debt. In December 2012, Leibovitz listed her West Village townhouse for sale at $33 million, stating she wanted to move closer to her daughter.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Melanie Clare Sophie Giedroyc (; , born 5 June 1968) is a British actress, comedian and television presenter. With Sue Perkins, she has co-hosted series including "Light Lunch" for Channel 4, "The Great British Bake Off" for the BBC and chat show "Mel and Sue" for ITV. In early 2017, Giedroyc co-presented the BBC show "Let It Shine".


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc was born on 5 June 1968 in Epsom, Surrey, and grew up in Leatherhead. Her father, Michal, an aircraft designer, civil engineer and family historian, of Polish-Lithuanian descent from the aristocratic Giedroyć family, moved to Britain in 1947; he died in December 2017. Her mother, Rosemary "Rosy" Cumpston (born 1937), is of English origin. Mel Giedroyc attended the independent Oxford High School, and later attended Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating with a lower second degree in French and Italian.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc is best known for comedy and presenting work with Sue Perkins. The two women met while students at the University of Cambridge and were members of the Footlights comedy club. Mel and Sue, the duo were short-listed for the "Daily Express" Best Newcomers Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 1993. Their first presenting roles saw them host a lunchtime show on Channel 4 called "Light Lunch" (and the early evening version, "Late Lunch").


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc appeared with Perkins in one episode of "Gimme Gimme Gimme", playing a receptionist at a hotel. She was also a presenter on Channel 4's "". She narrated "Celebrity Driving School" in 2003. Some other ventures include being a contestant on the 2005 series of "The Games", co-starring in the 2005 BBC One sitcom "Blessed" and co-presenting "Richard Hammond's 5 O'Clock Show" on ITV. Giedroyc was in one episode of "The Vicar of Dibley".


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc was the sixth student to be voted out of "Comic Relief Does Fame Academy" and was a celebrity judge on the 2007 edition of "Making Your Mind Up" along with John Barrowman. She starred as one of the presenters in the show "Eurobeat: Almost Eurovision!" at the Edinburgh Fringe and subsequently in the West End at the Novello Theatre. Giedroyc played the Fairy Liquid in a production of "Jack and the Beanstalk" at London's Barbican theatre in December 2007. She appeared in a children's sketch show for the BBC "Sorry, I've Got No Head". In 2010, Giedroyc was a celebrity guest team captain on "What Do Kids Know?" with Rufus Hound, Joe Swash and Sara Cox on Watch and also appeared in the first episode of series two of Miranda Hart's self-titled sitcom "Miranda" as a life coach.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc was a panellist on the Channel 5 programme "The Wright Stuff" in 2007, 2008 and in February 2010. She plays Mrs V, the owner of the Y café, in CBBC programme "Sadie J" and is also the voice of Mist in "Mist: Sheepdog Tales", shown on Channel 5's morning show "Milkshake!".


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc was reunited with Sue Perkins in 2010 to host the cookery competition "The Great British Bake Off", on BBC Two from 16 August 2010. Later, in an apparently syndicated newspaper interview, Giedroyc admitted that she did the show just for the money, informing readers that she had nearly gone bankrupt. The show moved to BBC One for its fifth series and has won numerous awards.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In September 2016, Love Productions announced that a three-year deal had been agreed to broadcast "The Great British Bake Off" on Channel 4, instead of the BBC, from 2017. Giedroyc and Perkins announced that they would not be continuing with the show on its new network. Mary Berry later announced she was also leaving the Bake Off on the same day that fellow-judge Paul Hollywood separately announced he would be staying with the show.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In 2012 and 2013, Giedroyc hosted two special charity series for Sport Relief and Comic Relief featuring celebrities who took part for charity. In 2014, she guest hosted an episode of "The Great Sport Relief Bake Off" and in 2015, one episode of "The Great Comic Relief Bake Off". In 2016, she presented the first episode of "The Great Sport Relief Bake Off".


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: From May 2014, Giedroyc presented one series of the Channel 4 programme "Draw It!", based upon and developed by the makers of the mobile app Draw Something.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In May 2014, Giedroyc and clinical psychologist Dr Jennifer Wild presented a one-off show for BBC One called "Vertigo Road Trip" about people who have a fear of heights. Reviewing the programme, in "The Psychologist", Petrina Cox described it as "an engaging and valuable education for the general public about the nature of anxiety disorders such as specific phobias. It is sure to reduce stigma, inspire hope and encourage people to seek evidence-based treatments... "


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In 2015, Giedroyc narrated eight-part BBC One series "Now You See It". A second series aired in 2016.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In December 2015 Giedroyc performed as Frau Schmidt in "The Sound of Music Live (2015)" which was broadcast on ITV. In January 2015, Giedroyc and Perkins were given their own daytime chat show on ITV. The show, called "Mel and Sue" aired for 30 episodes, every weekday at 4pm. In August 2015, it was announced that the show had not been re-commissioned.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc and Matt Baker began co-hosting four-part BBC One series "The Gift" in February 2015. It will return for a second series in 2017. Giedroyc hosted the Sky1 primetime game show "Relatively Clever", which began on 3 April 2015.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In May 2015, Giedroyc joined Scott Mills in commentating the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 for the United Kingdom. It was broadcast on BBC Three. Since 2016, Giedroyc has presented the "Eurovision You Decide" programme.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In 2017, Giedroyc co-presented the Saturday night BBC show "Let It Shine" – including three live shows – alongside Graham Norton. The judges were Gary Barlow, Martin Kemp and Dannii Minogue.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: She narrated "The Secret Chef" for ITV and co-presented "Let's Sing and Dance for Comic Relief" alongside Sue Perkins on BBC One.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Also in 2017, Giedroyc competed in the fourth series of "Taskmaster" against Lolly Adefope, Hugh Dennis, Noel Fielding and Joe Lycett. Since June 2017, Giedroyc has presented Saturday night entertainment series "Pitch Battle" for BBC One. She also presents the daily BBC Two game show "Letterbox", having hosted 45 episodes (15 for series One, 30 for series Two) since 2017. On 23 July 2017, it was confirmed that Giedroyc and Perkins would host a new version of "The Generation Game" for BBC One.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In November 2017, she co-presented "Children in Need" for the first time. In December 2017 she hosted an episode of "Have I Got News for You".


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In May 2018, Giedroyc was the spokesperson for the United Kingdom as part of the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: "Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable" began airing on Dave in February 2021. It invites three celebrity guests along to Mel's confessional each week to find out who's committed sins that are so bad that they should be declared ‘unforgivable’.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc appeared in the 1994 Radio 4 comedy series The Skivers with Nick Golson and Tim de Jongh. In July 2000, Giedroyc appeared as a contestant on "The 99p Challenge", a radio show hosted by Sue Perkins.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In August 2010, Giedroyc appeared on the Dave Gorman show on Absolute Radio as one of his co-hosts, standing in for Danielle Ward, and has also appeared on series 4 to 7 of "Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!" on BBC Radio 4. From 2 April 2011, with the rebranding of Radio 7 as Radio 4 extra, Giedroyc has presented "The 4 O'Clock Show", a chat show including items related to children's entertainment.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: From 16 April 2016, she started presenting a Saturday lunchtime show on Magic Radio from 1pm until 3pm.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: In November 2014 Giedroyc was a part of Gareth Malone's All Star Choir, singing the opening solo in the choir's cover version of "Wake Me Up" to raise money for the BBC's Children in Need. On 3 and 10 November 2014, a two-part documentary about the choir was broadcast by BBC One. On 16 November, the single entered the UK Singles Chart at Number One.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc appeared in "The Rocky Horror Show Live" which was simulcast live to cinemas across the United Kingdom and Europe from London's Playhouse Theatre on 17 September 2015 in the role of Third Narrator.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc appeared in the 2018 West End Revival of the Stephen Sondheim musical "Company", playing the role of Sarah.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc played Beatrice in the 2018 Rose Theatre production of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing".


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: On 23 November 2021, it was announced that Giedroyc would dance with Neil Jones in the 2021 Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc is the youngest of four children. Her sister Coky Giedroyc is a film and television director; while her other sister, children's writer Kasia, is married to Philip Parham, a British diplomat.


title: Mel Giedroyc

text: Giedroyc is married to Ben Morris, a television director and teacher at LAMDA. They have two daughters.


title: Frankie Grande

text: Frank James Michael Grande Marchione (born January 24, 1983) is an American dancer, actor, singer, producer, television host and YouTube personality. He is the older half-brother of singer and actress Ariana Grande.


title: Frankie Grande

text: He performed on Broadway as Franz in the musical "Rock of Ages" (2014–2015) and in "Mamma Mia!" (2007–2010) and has played roles Off-Broadway, in regional theatre productions and on tour. Grande has produced Broadway shows and both produced and appeared in cabaret acts, including his own one-man show. In 2012, Grande established a YouTube channel and has also been building a following on Twitter and Instagram. In 2014, he was a contestant on the U.S. reality television series "Big Brother 16".


title: Frankie Grande

text: Grande was a judge on the 2015 season of "America's Best Dance Crew". From 2016 to 2017, he co-hosted "Style Code Live", a live Amazon fashion and shopping show that streamed on weeknights, from which he took off time to compete on the UK reality show "Celebrity Big Brother 18" in mid-2016. His philanthropic work includes co-founding the non-profit arts organization "Broadway in South Africa" and work for buildOn.


title: Frankie Grande

text: Frankie Grande was born in New York City, the son of Victor Marchione, a physician, and Joan Grande, chief executive officer of telephone and alarm system company Hose-McCann Communications. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, and moved with his mother to Boca Raton, Florida, at age 10, where he later attended Pine Crest School. He began performing in musicals in the fifth grade. His half-sister is singer and actress Ariana Grande, and he has a half-brother, James Marchione. Grande is openly gay. He graduated from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania in 2005, having triple-majored in biology, theatre and dance. He considered medical school but decided to take a year off to pursue theatre.


title: Frankie Grande

text: He began his professional performing career by 2007, when he appeared as Boots the Monkey in a national tour of "Dora the Explorer Live! (Dora's Pirate Adventure)" and in regional theatre productions, including the title role in "George M!", Mike Costa in "A Chorus Line" and Lewis in "Pippin", among others. Later in 2007, he joined the Broadway cast of the musical "Mamma Mia!", in the ensemble and as understudy for Eddie, in which he performed for three years.


title: Frankie Grande

text: Grande produced shows on and off Broadway, including Broadway productions of "Hamlet" (2009) starring Jude Law and revivals of "La Bête" (2010–2011) starring David Hyde Pierce and "Born Yesterday" (2011) starring Jim Belushi. He also produced Brooke Shields' one-woman cabaret show in 2011. Grande has performed in cabaret acts in New York City, including at Birdland Jazz Club and 54 Below. Grande was named "Mr. Broadway" in the "Mr. Broadway 2007" charity benefit. In 2013, he starred as Bobby in a summer theatre production of the musical "Crazy for You". He also presented his own show in New York, "Livin' la Vida Grande", at the Laurie Beechman Theatre.


title: Frankie Grande

text: In February 2014, Grande played Consuela Off-Broadway in a revival of the musical "Pageant". In June of that year, he performed at DigiFest NYC. In mid-2014, Grande appeared on the US reality television series "Big Brother 16". MTV called his 12 weeks on the show "controversial ... peppered with some powerful, outrageous, and downright impressive moments". Grande placed 5th out of 16 contestants.


title: Frankie Grande

text: Grande returned to Broadway in November 2014 as Franz in the musical "Rock of Ages" for a two-month engagement. He appeared on "Good Day New York" and performed "Hit Me With Your Best Shot". The same month, he co-hosted the red carpet pre-show of the "American Music Awards". In 2014, "TV Guide" called Grande one of "Our Favorite YouTube Stars". He was featured in a 2014 ABC "Nightline" segment about entertainers who use social media to boost their success. Writing in "The New York Times" in 2014, Michael Musto termed Grande "friskily ambitious". Another reporter called him "unabashedly enthusiastic about life."


title: Frankie Grande

text: In 2015, "Billboard" included Grande in its list of "32 of the top social media stars on the Internet today." In January 2015, Grande again performed his one-man cabaret show at 54 Below. In February, he appeared in a music video for Lance Bass and modeled for Malan Breton at New York Fashion Week. In March, Grande was an "Entertainment Tonight" interviewer at the 2015 Kids' Choice Awards. He also appeared in the documentary short film, "Malan Breton: A Journey to Taiwan", which won the 2015 New York City International Film Festival award for "Best Short Documentary". In June he appeared at DigiFest NYC, and the following month he served as a judge for the #JoeyShine Video Contest. Grande was a judge on the 2015 reality TV series "America's Best Dance Crew All-Stars: Road to the VMAs", on MTV in 2015. He hosted a TV special on the Oxygen channel in August 2015 called "Worst.Post.Ever: With Frankie Grande" about social media "faux pas". The following month, he made a guest appearance on "Big Brother 17". He co-hosted the red carpet pre-show of the "American Music Awards" again in 2015. Throughout the year, he also regularly performed a number in his sister's The Honeymoon Tour. Grande was nominated for a 2016 People's Choice Award.


title: Frankie Grande

text: Grande revived his autobiographical one-man show, "Livin' La Vida Grande", in Los Angeles in January 2016. The same month, he and his sister launched a unisex fragrance named "Frankie by Ariana Grande". Beginning March 2016, Grande co-hosted Amazon.com's live show, "Style Code Live" ("SCL"), which covers celebrity trends as well as fashion and beauty news and tips. The show allows viewers to shop for the items discussed and to ask questions interactively. It streams live each weeknight. A review in "The Washington Post" called the show "something of a mash-up between QVC and E! News". Grande performed his cabaret act, "Livin' la Vida Grande", at The Box in New York City over a weekend in June 2016. He was also a guest panelist on Logo TV's "Gay for Play Game Show Starring RuPaul" in a 2016 episode. In July and August, Grande appeared on the UK reality TV show "Celebrity Big Brother 18", finishing in 6th place. He recorded a segment on fashions in the "Celebrity Big Brother" house for "SCL", and returned to co-hosting "SCL" full-time in September 2016. Grande continued to host "SCL" until May 2017.


title: Frankie Grande

text: Together with Olivia Culpo, he critiqued the 2017 Golden Globes fashions on "The Today Show". Grande modeled for Propaganda by Richie Rich, and again for Breton, at Madison Square Garden during New York Fashion Week in February 2017. In May 2017, he released a music single, "Queen", and an accompanying music video, about his inspiration by '70s glam rock icons. He launched an app partnership, YouCam Make-up, in June, which ties in to the single. "Queen" ranked number 35 on the "Billboard" Twitter Top Tracks chart for the week dated July 15, 2017. In July, Grande competed on the CBS TV game show "Candy Crush". The following month, he appeared on the Vimeo web series "Indoor Boys"; for this he was nominated for a Best Actor award at the 2018 Indie Series Awards. He guest-starred in September 2017 in a two-part episode of Nickelodeon's sitcom "Henry Danger", Season 3, "Live & Dangerous", in the role of Frankini. In October 2017 Grande appeared in the season 2 finale of the Netflix television series "Haters Back Off" as a fictionalized version of himself. In December, he appeared on "Trivial Takedown" on "Fuse" TV.


title: Frankie Grande

text: In January 2018, Grande starred in "The Unauthorized Musical Parody of: Rocky" at Rockwell Table and Stage in Los Angeles. The following month, he hosted the red carpet and performed at the Make-Up Artists and Hairstylists Guild Awards in Los Angeles. Grande played Frank-n-Furter in "The Rocky Horror Show" in Los Angeles and then joined the cast of the off-Broadway show "" at (Le) Poisson Rouge as Blaine in March 2018. In May 2018, Grande reprised the role of Frankini in a fourth season episode of "Henry Danger" titled "Captain Man-kini", and also guest-starred on "RuPaul's Drag Race". In July he returned for another guest appearance on "Indoor Boys". He starred as Finch in a July 2018 Muhlenberg production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". A reviewer wrote: "His Finch is utterly charming and has an adorable innocence that belies the manipulative techniques he employs to get ahead." In August, he played Captain Victor Garber in New York City in a parody jukebox musical, based on the music of Céline Dion, called "Titanique: In Conceret". He also appeared in the show's return engagement later in the year. He continued to performed in "Titanique" in pop-up concert engagements in Los Angeles and New York during the Covid-19 pandemic and in a live version of the show carried on the streaming platform Stellar on May 2, 2021.


title: Frankie Grande

text: Grande also continued to perform his one-man show at nightclubs. He returned as Frankini for a musical episode of "Henry Danger" in July 2019 titled "Henry Danger: The Musical", in which he places a curse on Swellview that forces everyone to sing instead of speak. He reprised his role of Franz in a Los Angeles production of "Rock of Ages" in late 2019. Grande played the role of Richard in the 2020 film "Spree" He starred in the 2021 Macy Gray video of "Undone". and played Frankini in several episodes of "Danger Force" from 2020 to 2022. Since 2021, together with Hector Navarro, he has been hosting the Nickelodeon podcast "SpongeBob BingePants". In April 2022, Grande reprised the role of Frankini in a crossover episode of "Side Hustle", and from June to September, he reprises the role of Victor Garber in an off-Broadway engagement of "Titanique" at The Asylum Theatre.


title: Frankie Grande

text: As of 2022, Grande's social media presence included more than 400,000 YouTube subscribers and 30 million views on YouTube, more than 2 million followers on Instagram and one million followers on Twitter.


title: Frankie Grande

text: In 2007, Grande co-founded the non-profit arts organization "Broadway in South Africa", traveling to South Africa to teach performance arts to disadvantaged youth for seven years, before the charity merged with buildOn. In 2013, Grande helped buildOn to build a school in a rural village in Malawi, in southeastern Africa, and in 2014 buildOn honored him for his efforts with its Global Impact Award. Grande is an anti-smoking advocate. Grande donated the money that he won on "Big Brother 16" (from the "Team America" twist he was a part of) to buildOn, to build another school in Africa. In January 2015, he returned to Malawi to help begin construction of the school, named in memory of his grandfather. Grande raised additional money for buildOn, to fund the school, eventually surpassing his goal of $70,000. Grande participated in a 2016 fire prevention public service announcement called 2steps2minutes and the annual "Broadway Bares" show to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.


title: Frankie Grande

text: In June 2018, Grande headlined the annual "Broadway Sings for Pride" benefit concert at The Cutting Room in New York. He is also an active participant in AIDS/LifeCycle, an annual event that raises money to fight HIV/AIDS. He raised over $38,000 in 2018. Grande also rode in the event in June 2019.


title: Frankie Grande

text: In 2019, Grande began dating Hale Leon, and on June 8, 2021, the couple became engaged. On May 4, 2022, the couple married.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan (r. 927–939). It became part of the short-lived North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The Anglo-Saxons migrated to England from mainland northwestern Europe after the Roman Empire abandoned Britain at the beginning of the fifth century. Anglo-Saxon history thus begins during the period of sub-Roman Britain following the end of Roman control, and traces the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the 5th and 6th centuries (conventionally identified as seven main kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex); their Christianisation during the 7th century; the threat of Viking invasions and Danish settlers; the gradual unification of England under the Wessex hegemony during the 9th and 10th centuries; and ending with the Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Anglo-Saxon identity survived beyond the Norman conquest, came to be known as Englishry under Norman rule, and through social and cultural integration with Celts, Danes and Normans became the modern English people.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Bede completed his book "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum" (Ecclesiastical History of the English People) in around 731. Thus, the term for English people (Latin: "gens Anglorum"; Old English: "Angelcynn") was in use by then to distinguish Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent (Old Saxony in Northern Germany). The term 'Anglo-Saxon' came into use in the 8th century (probably by Paul the Deacon) to distinguish English Saxons from continental Saxons (Ealdseaxan, 'old' Saxons).


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The historian James Campbell suggested that it was not until the late Anglo-Saxon period that England could be described as a nation state. It is certain that the concept of "Englishness" only developed very slowly.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: As the Roman occupation of Britain was coming to an end, Constantine III withdrew the remains of the army in reaction to the Germanic invasion of Gaul with the Crossing of the Rhine in December 406. The Romano-British leaders were faced with an increasing security problem from seaborne raids, particularly by Picts on the east coast of England. The expedient adopted by the Romano-British leaders was to enlist the help of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries (known as ), to whom they ceded territory. In about 442 the Anglo-Saxons mutinied, apparently because they had not been paid. The Romano-British responded by appealing to the Roman commander of the Western empire, Aëtius, for help (a document known as the "Groans of the Britons"), even though Honorius, the Western Roman Emperor, had written to the British in or about 410 telling them to look to their own defence. There then followed several years of fighting between the British and the Anglo-Saxons. The fighting continued until around 500, when, at the Battle of Mount Badon, the Britons inflicted a severe defeat on the Anglo-Saxons.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: There are records of Germanic infiltration into Britain that date before the collapse of the Roman Empire. It is believed that the earliest Germanic visitors were eight cohorts of Batavians attached to the 14th Legion in the original invasion force under Aulus Plautius in AD 43. There is a recent hypothesis that some of the native tribes, identified as Britons by the Romans, may have been Germanic-language speakers, but most scholars disagree with this due to an insufficient record of local languages in Roman-period artefacts.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: It was quite common for Rome to swell its legions with foederati recruited from the German homelands. This practice also extended to the army serving in Britain, and graves of these mercenaries, along with their families, can be identified in the Roman cemeteries of the period. The migration continued with the departure of the Roman army, when Anglo-Saxons were recruited to defend Britain; and also during the period of the Anglo-Saxon first rebellion of 442.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: If the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" is to be believed, the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which eventually merged to become England were founded when small fleets of three or five ships of invaders arrived at various points around the coast of England to fight the sub-Roman British, and conquered their lands. The language of the migrants, Old English, came over the next few centuries to predominate throughout what is now England, at the expense of British Celtic and British Latin.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons into Britain can be seen in the context of a general movement of Germanic peoples around Europe between the years 300 and 700, known as the Migration period (also called the Barbarian Invasions or Völkerwanderung). In the same period there were migrations of Britons to the Armorican peninsula (Brittany and Normandy in modern-day France): initially around 383 during Roman rule, but also c. 460 and in the 540s and 550s; the 460s migration is thought to be a reaction to the fighting during the Anglo-Saxon mutiny between about 450 to 500, as was the migration to Britonia (modern day Galicia, in northwest Spain) at about the same time.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The historian Peter Hunter-Blair expounded what is now regarded as the traditional view of the Anglo-Saxon arrival in Britain. He suggested a mass immigration, with the incomers fighting and driving the sub-Roman Britons off their land and into the western extremities of the islands, and into the Breton and Iberian peninsulas. This view is based on sources such as Bede, who mentions the Britons being slaughtered or going into "perpetual servitude". According to Härke


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: the more modern view is of co-existence between the British and the Anglo-Saxons. He suggests that several modern archaeologists have now re-assessed the traditional model, and have developed a co-existence model largely based on the Laws of Ine. The laws include several clauses that provide six different wergild levels for the Britons, of which four are below that of freeman. Although it was possible for the Britons to be rich freemen in Anglo-Saxon society, generally it seems that they had a lower status than that of the Anglo-Saxons.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Discussions and analysis still continue on the size of the migration, and whether it was a small elite band of Anglo-Saxons who came in and took over the running of the country, or a mass migration of peoples who overwhelmed the Britons. An emerging view is that two scenarios could have co-occurred, with large-scale migration and demographic change in the core areas of the settlement and elite dominance in peripheral regions.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: According to Gildas, initial vigorous British resistance was led by a man called Ambrosius Aurelianus, from which time victory fluctuated between the two peoples. Gildas records a "final" victory of the Britons at the Battle of Mount Badon in c. 500, and this might mark a point at which Anglo-Saxon migration was temporarily stemmed. Gildas said that this battle was "forty-four years and one month" after the arrival of the Saxons, and was also the year of his birth. He said that a time of great prosperity followed. But, despite the lull, the Anglo-Saxons took control of Sussex, Kent, East Anglia and part of Yorkshire; while the West Saxons founded a kingdom in Hampshire under the leadership of Cerdic, around 520. However, it was to be 50 years before the Anglo-Saxons began further major advances. In the intervening years the Britons exhausted themselves with civil war, internal disputes, and general unrest, which was the inspiration behind Gildas's book "De Excidio Britanniae" (The Ruin of Britain).


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The next major campaign against the Britons was in 577, led by Ceawlin, king of Wessex, whose campaigns succeeded in taking Cirencester, Gloucester and Bath (known as the Battle of Dyrham). This expansion of Wessex ended abruptly when the Anglo-Saxons started fighting among themselves and resulted in Ceawlin retreating to his original territory. He was then replaced by Ceol (who was possibly his nephew). Ceawlin was killed the following year, but the annals do not specify by whom. Cirencester subsequently became an Anglo-Saxon kingdom under the overlordship of the Mercians, rather than Wessex.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: By 600, a new order was developing, of kingdoms and sub-Kingdoms. The medieval historian Henry of Huntingdon conceived the idea of the Heptarchy, which consisted of the seven principal Anglo-Saxon kingdoms ("Heptarchy" literal translation from the Greek: "hept" – seven; "archy" – rule).


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: By convention, the Heptarchy period lasted from the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, until most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms came under the overlordship of Egbert of Wessex in 829. This approximately 400-year period of European history is often referred to as the Early Middle Ages or, more controversially, as the Dark Ages.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Although "heptarchy" suggests the existence of seven kingdoms, the term is just used as a label of convenience and does not imply the existence of a clear-cut or stable group of seven kingdoms. The number of kingdoms and sub-kingdoms fluctuated rapidly during this period as competing kings contended for supremacy.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: At the end of the 6th century the most powerful ruler in England was Æthelberht of Kent, whose lands extended north to the River Humber. In the early years of the 7th century, Kent and East Anglia were the leading English kingdoms. After the death of Æthelberht in 616, Rædwald of East Anglia became the most powerful leader south of the Humber.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Following the death of Æthelfrith of Northumbria, Rædwald provided military assistance to the Deiran Edwin in his struggle to take over the two dynasties of Deira and Bernicia in the unified kingdom of Northumbria. Upon the death of Rædwald, Edwin was able to pursue a grand plan to expand Northumbrian power.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The growing strength of Edwin of Northumbria forced the Anglo-Saxon Mercians under Penda into an alliance with the Welsh King Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd, and together they invaded Edwin's lands and defeated and killed him at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in 633. Their success was short-lived, as Oswald (one of the sons of the late King of Northumbria, Æthelfrith) defeated and killed Cadwallon at Heavenfield near Hexham. In less than a decade Penda again waged war against Northumbria, and killed Oswald in the Battle of Maserfield in 642.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: His brother Oswiu was chased to the northern extremes of his kingdom. However, Oswiu killed Penda shortly after, and Mercia spent the rest of the 7th and all of the 8th century fighting the kingdom of Powys. The war reached its climax during the reign of Offa of Mercia, who is remembered for the construction of a 150-mile-long dyke which formed the Wales/England border. It is not clear whether this was a boundary line or a defensive position. The ascendency of the Mercians came to an end in 825, when they were soundly beaten under Beornwulf at the Battle of Ellendun by Egbert of Wessex.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Christianity had been introduced into the British Isles during the Roman occupation. The early Christian Berber author, Tertullian, writing in the 3rd century, said that "Christianity could "even" be found in Britain." The Roman Emperor Constantine (306–337), granted official tolerance to Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313. Then, in the reign of Emperor Theodosius "the Great" (378–395), Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: It is not entirely clear how many Britons would have been Christian when the pagan Anglo-Saxons arrived. There had been attempts to evangelise the Irish by Pope Celestine I in 431. However, it was Saint Patrick who is credited with converting the Irish en-masse. A Christian Ireland then set about evangelising the rest of the British Isles, and Columba was sent to found a religious community in Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. Then Aidan was sent from Iona to set up his see in Northumbria, at Lindisfarne, between 635 and 651. Hence Northumbria was converted by the Celtic (Irish) church.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Bede is very uncomplimentary about the indigenous British clergy: in his "Historia ecclesiastica" he complains of their "unspeakable crimes", and that they did not preach the faith to the Angles or Saxons. Pope Gregory I sent Augustine in 597 to convert the Anglo-Saxons, but Bede says the British clergy refused to help Augustine in his mission. Despite Bede's complaints, it is now believed that the Britons played an important role in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons. On arrival in the south east of England in 597, Augustine was given land by King Æthelberht of Kent to build a church; so in 597 Augustine built the church and founded the See at Canterbury. Æthelberht was baptised by 601, and he then continued with his mission to convert the English. Most of the north and east of England had already been evangelised by the Irish Church. However, Sussex and the Isle of Wight remained mainly pagan until the arrival of Saint Wilfrid, the exiled Archbishop of York, who converted Sussex around 681 and the Isle of Wight in 683.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: It remains unclear what "conversion" actually meant. The ecclesiastical writers tended to declare a territory as "converted" merely because the local king had agreed to be baptised, regardless of whether, in reality, he actually adopted Christian practices; and regardless, too, of whether the general population of his kingdom did. When churches were built, they tended to include pagan as well as Christian symbols, evidencing an attempt to reach out to the pagan Anglo-Saxons, rather than demonstrating that they were already converted.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Even after Christianity had been set up in all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, there was friction between the followers of the Roman rites and the Irish rites, particularly over the date on which Easter fell and the way monks cut their hair. In 664 a conference was held at Whitby Abbey (known as the Whitby Synod) to decide the matter; Saint Wilfrid was an advocate for the Roman rites and Bishop Colmán for the Irish rites. Wilfrid's argument won the day and Colmán and his party returned to Ireland in their bitter disappointment. The Roman rites were adopted by the English church, although they were not universally accepted by the Irish Church until Henry II of England invaded Ireland in the 12th century and imposed the Roman rites by force.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Between the 8th and 11th centuries, raiders and colonists from Scandinavia, mainly Danish and Norwegian, plundered western Europe, including the British Isles. These raiders came to be known as the "Vikings"; the name is believed to derive from Scandinavia, where the Vikings originated. The first raids in the British Isles were in the late 8th century, mainly on churches and monasteries (which were seen as centres of wealth). The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" reports that the holy island of Lindisfarne was sacked in 793. The raiding then virtually stopped for around 40 years; but in about 835, it started becoming more regular.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: In the 860s, instead of raids, the Danes mounted a full-scale invasion. In 865, an enlarged army arrived that the Anglo-Saxons described as the Great Heathen Army. This was reinforced in 871 by the Great Summer Army. Within ten years nearly all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fell to the invaders: Northumbria in 867, East Anglia in 869, and nearly all of Mercia in 874–77. Kingdoms, centres of learning, archives, and churches all fell before the onslaught from the invading Danes. Only the Kingdom of Wessex was able to survive. In March 878, the Anglo-Saxon King of Wessex, Alfred, with a few men, built a fortress at Athelney, hidden deep in the marshes of Somerset. He used this as a base from which to harry the Vikings. In May 878 he put together an army formed from the populations of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, which defeated the Viking army in the Battle of Edington. The Vikings retreated to their stronghold, and Alfred laid siege to it. Ultimately the Danes capitulated, and their leader Guthrum agreed to withdraw from Wessex and to be baptised. The formal ceremony was completed a few days later at Wedmore. There followed a peace treaty between Alfred and Guthrum, which had a variety of provisions, including defining the boundaries of the area to be ruled by the Danes (which became known as the Danelaw) and those of Wessex. The Kingdom of Wessex controlled part of the Midlands and the whole of the South (apart from Cornwall, which was still held by the Britons), while the Danes held East Anglia and the North.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: After the victory at Edington and resultant peace treaty, Alfred set about transforming his Kingdom of Wessex into a society on a full-time war footing. He built a navy, reorganised the army, and set up a system of fortified towns known as burhs. He mainly used old Roman cities for his burhs, as he was able to rebuild and reinforce their existing fortifications. To maintain the burhs, and the standing army, he set up a taxation system known as the Burghal Hidage. These burhs (or burghs) operated as defensive structures. The Vikings were thereafter unable to cross large sections of Wessex: the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" reports that a Danish raiding party was defeated when it tried to attack the burh of Chichester.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Although the "burhs" were primarily designed as defensive structures, they were also commercial centres, attracting traders and markets to a safe haven, and they provided a safe place for the king's moneyers and mints. A new wave of Danish invasions commenced in 891, beginning a war that lasted over three years. Alfred's new system of defence worked, however, and ultimately it wore the Danes down: they gave up and dispersed in mid-896.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Alfred is remembered as a literate king. He or his court commissioned the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", which was written in Old English (rather than in Latin, the language of the European annals). Alfred's own literary output was mainly of translations, but he also wrote introductions and amended manuscripts.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: From 874 to 879 the western half of Mercia was ruled by Ceowulf II, who was succeeded by Æthelred as Lord of the Mercians. Alfred the Great of Wessex styled himself King of the Anglo-Saxons from about 886. In 886/887 Æthelred married Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd. On Alfred's death in 899, his son Edward the Elder succeeded him.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: When Æthelred died in 911, Æthelflæd succeeded him as "Lady of the Mercians", and in the 910s she and her brother Edward recovered East Anglia and eastern Mercia from Viking rule. Edward and his successors expanded Alfred's network of fortified burhs, a key element of their strategy, enabling them to go on the offensive. When Edward died in 924 he ruled all England south of the Humber. His son, Æthelstan, annexed Northumbria in 927 and thus became the first king of all England. At the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, he defeated an alliance of the Scots, Danes, and Vikings and Strathclyde Britons.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Along with the Britons and the settled Danes, some of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms disliked being ruled by Wessex. Consequently, the death of a Wessex king would be followed by rebellion, particularly in Northumbria. Alfred's great-grandson, Edgar, who had come to the throne in 959, was crowned at Bath in 973 and soon afterwards the other British kings met him at Chester and acknowledged his authority.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The presence of Danish and Norse settlers in the Danelaw had a lasting impact; the people there saw themselves as "armies" a hundred years after settlement: King Edgar issued a law code in 962 that was to include the people of Northumbria, so he addressed it to Earl Olac "and all the army that live in that earldom". There are over 3,000 words in modern English that have Scandinavian roots, and more than 1,500 place-names in England are Scandinavian in origin; for example, topographic names such as Howe, Norfolk and Howe, North Yorkshire are derived from the Old Norse word "haugr" meaning hill, knoll, or mound. In archaeology and other academic contexts the term "Anglo-Scandinavian" is often used for Scandinavian culture in England.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Edgar died in 975, sixteen years after gaining the throne, while still only in his early thirties. Some magnates supported the succession of his younger son, Æthelred, but his elder half-brother, Edward was elected, aged about twelve. His reign was marked by disorder, and three years later, in 978, he was assassinated by some of his half-brother's retainers. Æthelred succeeded, and although he reigned for thirty-eight years, one of the longest reigns in English history, he earned the name "Æthelred the Unready", as he proved to be one of England's most disastrous kings. William of Malmesbury, writing in his "Chronicle of the kings of England" about one hundred years later, was scathing in his criticism of Æthelred, saying that he occupied the kingdom, rather than governed it.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Just as Æthelred was being crowned, the Danish King Gormsson was trying to force Christianity onto his domain. Many of his subjects did not like this idea, and shortly before 988, Swein, his son, drove his father from the kingdom. The rebels, dispossessed at home, probably formed the first waves of raids on the English coast. The rebels did so well in their raiding that the Danish kings decided to take over the campaign themselves.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: In 991 the Vikings sacked Ipswich, and their fleet made landfall near Maldon in Essex. The Danes demanded that the English pay a ransom, but the English commander Byrhtnoth refused; he was killed in the ensuing Battle of Maldon, and the English were easily defeated. From then on the Vikings seem to have raided anywhere at will; they were contemptuous of the lack of resistance from the English. Even the Alfredian systems of burhs failed. Æthelred seems to have just hidden, out of range of the raiders.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: By the 980s the kings of Wessex had a powerful grip on the coinage of the realm. It is reckoned there were about 300 moneyers, and 60 mints, around the country. Every five or six years the coinage in circulation would cease to be legal tender and new coins were issued. The system controlling the currency around the country was extremely sophisticated; this enabled the king to raise large sums of money if needed. The need indeed arose after the battle of Maldon, as Æthelred decided that, rather than fight, he would pay ransom to the Danes in a system known as Danegeld. As part of the ransom, a peace treaty was drawn up that was intended to stop the raids. However, rather than buying the Vikings off, payment of Danegeld only encouraged them to come back for more.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The Dukes of Normandy were quite happy to allow these Danish adventurers to use their ports for raids on the English coast. The result was that the courts of England and Normandy became increasingly hostile to each other. Eventually, Æthelred sought a treaty with the Normans, and ended up marrying Emma, daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy in the Spring of 1002, which was seen as an attempt to break the link between the raiders and Normandy.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Then, on St. Brice's day in November 1002, Danes living in England were slaughtered on the orders of Æthelred.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: In mid-1013, Sven Forkbeard, King of Denmark, brought the Danish fleet to Sandwich, Kent. From there he went north to the Danelaw, where the locals immediately agreed to support him. He then struck south, forcing Æthelred into exile in Normandy (1013–1014). However, on 3 February 1014, Sven died suddenly. Capitalising on his death, Æthelred returned to England and drove Sven's son, Cnut, back to Denmark, forcing him to abandon his allies in the process.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: In 1015, Cnut launched a new campaign against England. Edmund fell out with his father, Æthelred, and struck out on his own. Some English leaders decided to support Cnut, so Æthelred ultimately retreated to London. Before engagement with the Danish army, Æthelred died and was replaced by Edmund. The Danish army encircled and besieged London, but Edmund was able to escape and raised an army of loyalists. Edmund's army routed the Danes, but the success was short-lived: at the Battle of Ashingdon, the Danes were victorious, and many of the English leaders were killed. Cnut and Edmund agreed to split the kingdom in two, with Edmund ruling Wessex and Cnut the rest.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: In 1017, Edmund died in mysterious circumstances, probably murdered by Cnut or his supporters, and the English council (the witan) confirmed Cnut as king of all England. Cnut divided England into earldoms: most of these were allocated to nobles of Danish descent, but he made an Englishman earl of Wessex. The man he appointed was Godwin, who eventually became part of the extended royal family when he married the king's sister-in-law. In the summer of 1017, Cnut sent for Æthelred's widow, Emma, with the intention of marrying her. It seems that Emma agreed to marry the king on condition that he would limit the English succession to the children born of their union. Cnut already had a wife, known as Ælfgifu of Northampton, who bore him two sons, Svein and Harold Harefoot. The church, however, seems to have regarded Ælfgifu as Cnut's concubine rather than his wife. In addition to the two sons he had with Ælfgifu, he had a further son with Emma, who was named Harthacnut.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: When Cnut's brother, Harald II, King of Denmark, died in 1018, Cnut went to Denmark to secure that realm. Two years later, Cnut brought Norway under his control, and he gave Ælfgifu and their son Svein the job of governing it.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: One result of Cnut's marriage to Emma was to precipitate a succession crisis after his death in 1035, as the throne was disputed between Ælfgifu's son, Harald Harefoot, and Emma's son, Harthacnut. Emma supported her son by Cnut, Harthacnut, rather than a son by Æthelred. Her son by Æthelred, Edward, made an unsuccessful raid on Southampton, and his brother Alfred was murdered on an expedition to England in 1036. Emma fled to Bruges when Harald Harefoot became king of England, but when he died in 1040 Harthacnut was able to take over as king. Harthacnut quickly developed a reputation for imposing high taxes on England. He became so unpopular that Edward was invited to return from exile in Normandy to be recognised as Harthacnut's heir, and when Harthacnut died suddenly in 1042 (probably murdered), Edward (known to posterity as Edward the Confessor) became king.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Edward was supported by Earl Godwin of Wessex and married the earl's daughter. This arrangement was seen as expedient, however, as Godwin had been implicated in the murder of Alfred, the king's brother. In 1051 one of Edward's in-laws, Eustace, arrived to take up residence in Dover; the men of Dover objected and killed some of Eustace's men. When Godwin refused to punish them, the king, who had been unhappy with the Godwins for some time, summoned them to trial. Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was chosen to deliver the news to Godwin and his family. The Godwins fled rather than face trial. Norman accounts suggest that at this time Edward offered the succession to his cousin, William (duke) of Normandy (also known as William the Conqueror, William the Bastard, or William I), though this is unlikely given that accession to the Anglo-Saxon kingship was by election, not heredity – a fact which Edward would surely have known, having been elected himself by the Witenagemot.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The Godwins, having previously fled, threatened to invade England. Edward is said to have wanted to fight, but at a Great Council meeting in Westminster, Earl Godwin laid down all his weapons and asked the king to allow him to purge himself of all crimes. The king and Godwin were reconciled, and the Godwins thus became the most powerful family in England after the king. On Godwin's death in 1053, his son Harold succeeded to the earldom of Wessex; Harold's brothers Gyrth, Leofwine, and Tostig were given East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria. The Northumbrians disliked Tostig for his harsh behaviour, and he was expelled to an exile in Flanders, in the process falling out with his brother Harold, who supported the king's line in backing the Northumbrians.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: On 26 December 1065, Edward was taken ill. He took to his bed and fell into a coma; at one point he woke and turned to Harold Godwinson and asked him to protect the Queen and the kingdom. On 5 January 1066 Edward the Confessor died, and Harold was declared king. The following day, 6 January 1066, Edward was buried and Harold crowned.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Although Harold Godwinson had "grabbed" the crown of England, others laid claim to it, primarily William, Duke of Normandy, who was cousin to Edward the Confessor through his aunt, Emma of Normandy. It is believed that Edward had promised the crown to William. Harold Godwinson had agreed to support William's claim after being imprisoned in Normandy, by Guy of Ponthieu. William had demanded and received Harold's release, then during his stay under William's protection it is claimed, by the Normans, that Harold swore "a solemn oath" of loyalty to William.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Harald Hardrada ("The Ruthless") of Norway also had a claim on England, through Cnut and his successors. He had a further claim based on a pact between Harthacnut, King of Denmark (Cnut's son) and Magnus, King of Norway.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Tostig, Harold's estranged brother, was the first to move; according to the medieval historian Orderic Vitalis, he travelled to Normandy to enlist the help of William, Duke of Normandy, later to be known as William the Conqueror. William was not ready to get involved so Tostig sailed from the Cotentin Peninsula, but because of storms ended up in Norway, where he successfully enlisted the help of Harald Hardrada. The "Anglo Saxon Chronicle" has a different version of the story, having Tostig land in the Isle of Wight in May 1066, then ravaging the English coast, before arriving at Sandwich, Kent. At Sandwich Tostig is said to have enlisted and press ganged sailors before sailing north where, after battling some of the northern earls and also visiting Scotland, he eventually joined Hardrada (possibly in Scotland or at the mouth of the river Tyne).


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: According to the "Anglo Saxon Chronicle" (Manuscripts "D" and "E") Tostig became Hardrada's vassal and then with 300 or so longships sailed up the Humber Estuary bottling the English fleet in the river Swale and then landed at Riccall on the Ouse. They marched towards York, where they were confronted, at Fulford Gate, by the English forces that were under the command of the northern earls, Edwin and Morcar; the Battle of Fulford followed, on 20 September, which was one of the bloodiest battles of medieval times. The English forces were routed, though Edwin and Morcar escaped. The victors entered the city of York, exchanged hostages and were provisioned. Hearing the news whilst in London, Harold Godwinson force-marched a second English army to Tadcaster by the night of the 24th, and after catching Harald Hardrada by surprise, on the morning of 25 September, Harold achieved a total victory over the Scandinavian horde after a two-day-long engagement at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Harold gave quarter to the survivors allowing them to leave in 20 ships.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: Harold would have been celebrating his victory at Stamford Bridge on the night of 26/27 September 1066, while William of Normandy's invasion fleet set sail for England on the morning of 27 September 1066. Harold marched his army back down to the south coast, where he met William's army, at a place now called Battle just outside Hastings. Harold was killed when he fought and lost the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: The Battle of Hastings virtually destroyed the Godwin dynasty. Harold and his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine were dead on the battlefield, as was their uncle , Abbot of Newminster. Tostig had been killed at Stamford Bridge. Wulfnoth was a hostage of William the Conqueror. The Godwin women who remained were either dead or childless.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: William marched on London. The city leaders surrendered the kingdom to him, and he was crowned at Westminster Abbey, Edward the Confessor's new church, on Christmas Day 1066. It took William a further ten years to consolidate his kingdom, during which any opposition was suppressed ruthlessly; in a particularly brutal process known as the Harrying of the North, William issued orders to lay waste the north and burn all the cattle, crops and farming equipment and to poison the earth. According to Orderic Vitalis, the Anglo-Norman chronicler, over 100,000 people died of starvation. Figures based on the returns for the Domesday Book estimate that the population of England in 1086 was about 2.25 million, so 100,000 deaths, due to starvation, would have equated to 5 percent of the population.


title: History of Anglo-Saxon England

text: By the time of William's death in 1087 it was estimated that only about 8 percent of the land was under Anglo-Saxon control. Nearly all the Anglo-Saxon cathedrals and abbeys of any note had been demolished and replaced with Norman-style architecture by 1200.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software application (NLE) developed by Adobe Inc. and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. First launched in 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro is a successor of Adobe Premiere (first launched in 1991). It is geared towards professional video editing, while its sibling, Adobe Premiere Elements, targets the consumer market.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: CNN was an early adopter of Adobe Premiere Pro. Also, in 2007, certain BBC departments adopted Premiere Pro. It has been used to edit feature films, such as "Deadpool", "Gone Girl", "Captain Abu Raed", "" and "Monsters", and other venues such as Madonna's Confessions Tour.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Premiere was one of the first computer non-linear editing systems. The first version for Mac released in 1991, and the first version for Microsoft Windows was released in September 1993. The project began at SuperMac Technology as ReelTime, a QuickTime-based video editor for its VideoSpigot video capture card. SuperMac engineer Randy Ubillos created a working demo of ReelTime in about 10 weeks while QuickTime was still in beta. The software project was acquired by Adobe Systems in August 1991 and was renamed Adobe Premiere. Ubillos also left SuperMac to join Adobe.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Premiere was one of the first QuickTime-based video editors on the market. As a result, its ability to import new video formats could also be upgraded by updating to a newer compatible version of Quicktime. However, it was limited to processing video and images that were 1024 pixels wide, or less.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Premiere included 24 transition effects and a plug-in architecture that was compatible with some Photoshop filters.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Premiere Pro is the successor to Adobe Premiere and was launched in 2003. Premiere Pro refers to versions released in 2003 and later, whereas Premiere refers to the earlier releases. Premiere was based on ReelTime, a product acquired from SuperMac Technologies Inc. and was one of the first computer-based NLEs (non-linear editing system), with its first release on Mac in 1991. Adobe briefly abandoned the Mac platform after version 6 of Premiere. Up until version Premiere Pro 2.0 (CS2), the software packaging featured a galloping horse, in a nod to Eadweard Muybridge's work, "Sallie Gardner at a Gallop".


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Premiere Pro supports high resolution video editing at up to 10,240 × 8,192 resolution, at up to 32 bits per channel color, in both RGB and YUV. Audio sample-level editing, VST audio plug-in support, and 5.1 surround sound mixing are available. Premiere Pro's plug-in architecture enables it to import and export formats beyond those supported by QuickTime or DirectShow, supporting a wide variety of video and audio file formats and codecs on both MacOS and Windows. When used with CineForm's Neo line of plug-ins, it supports 3D editing with the ability to view 3D material using 2D monitors, while making individual left and right eye adjustments.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Premiere Pro can be used for all common video editing tasks necessary for producing broadcast-quality, high-definition video. It can be used to import video, audio and graphics, and is used to create new, edited versions of video which can be exported to the medium and format necessary for the distribution. When creating videos using Premiere Pro, various videos, still images and audio files can be edited together. Titles and motion graphics can be added to videos and filters can be applied along with other effects.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Premiere Pro was very well received at launch in the film and video industry, seeing use in films such as "Superman Returns", "Dust to Glory" (for video capture processing), and also in places such as Madonna's Confessions Tour.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: Various extensions are available for Premiere Pro, provided by third parties. These include music libraries and graphic elements. Extensions open in their own panel within the Premiere Pro interface.


title: Adobe Premiere Pro

text: The Adobe Premiere family is a group of applications and services made by Adobe Inc. for the use of professional non-linear video editing. Several features of the Adobe Premiere family are non-linear video editing, metadata and ingest logging, media output encoding, and more.


title: Antz

text: Antz is a 1998 American computer-animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation (in its debut film) and Pacific Data Images and released by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson (in their feature directorial debuts) from a screenplay by Todd Alcott, Chris Weitz, and Paul Weitz. The film features the voices of Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone, Christopher Walken, Dan Aykroyd, Anne Bancroft, Danny Glover and Gene Hackman. Some of the main characters share facial similarities with the actors who voice them. The film involves a worker ant, Z (Allen), who falls in love with Princess Bala (Stone). When the treacherous scheming of the evil General Mandible (Hackman) threaten to wipe out the entire worker population, Z must save the ant colony and strives to make social inroads.


title: Antz

text: Development began in 1988 when Walt Disney Feature Animation pitched a film called "Army Ants", about a pacifist worker ant teaching lessons of independent thinking to his militaristic colony. Meanwhile, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner over the vacant president position after the death of Frank Wells. Katzenberg would later go on to help co-found DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, and the three planned to rival Disney with the company's new animation division. The film began production in May 1996, after production had already commenced on "The Prince of Egypt" (1998). DreamWorks had contracted Pacific Data Images (PDI) in Palo Alto, California to begin working on computer-animated films to rival Pixar's features. Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell composed the music for the film, making their first animated film. During its production, a public feud erupted between Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks, and Steve Jobs and John Lasseter of Pixar, due to the production of their similar film "A Bug's Life", which was released a month later. This is only worsened when Disney refused to avoid competition with DreamWorks' intended first animated release, "The Prince of Egypt".


title: Antz

text: "Antz" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 19, 1998, and was released theatrically in the United States on October 2, 1998. It grossed $171.8 million worldwide on a budget of $42–105 million and received positive reviews, with critics praising the voice cast, animation, humor, and its appeal towards adults.


title: Antz

text: Z is an anxious worker ant who chafes at conformity and the fact that everyone, even his psychiatrist, reminds him he is insignificant. While at the local bar one night, Z falls in love with Princess Bala when she visits the bar to escape her suffocating royal life.


title: Antz

text: The ant colony declares war on an encroaching termite colony, and soldiers are sent to engage the invaders. To see Bala again, Z exchanges places with his soldier friend, Weaver, and joins the army, where he befriends staff sergeant Barbatus. The ants are unaware that General Mandible, the army's leader and Bala's fiancee, is secretly sending the soldiers loyal to the Queen to die so he can stage a coup d'état. In the battle, everyone except Z is killed by much-larger acid-shooting termite defenders. Before dying, Barbatus tells Z to think for himself instead of blindly following orders. Meanwhile, Weaver joins the digging crew and falls in love with Z's co-worker, Azteca.


title: Antz

text: Z returns home and is mistakenly hailed as a war hero. Secretly unsatisfied, Mandible congratulates him and introduces him to the Queen. There, Z meets Bala, who recognizes him as a worker. Z panics and pretends to take Bala hostage, causing him and Bala to fall out of the anthill via a garbage chute. Now a fugitive, Z decides to search for Insectopia, a legendary insect paradise. Bala attempts to return to the colony, but quickly rejoins Z after encountering a praying mantis.


title: Antz

text: Z's act of individuality inspires the workers and some soldier ants, halting productivity. To gain control, Mandible publicly portrays Z as a self-centered war criminal, promotes the glory of conformity and promises the workers rewards for completing a "Mega Tunnel" he designed. However, Mandible's second-in-command, a flying ant named Cutter, begins to doubt Mandible's constant reassurances that he's acting "for the good of the colony".


title: Antz

text: Z and Bala come upon a human picnic, which they mistake for Insectopia. They are baffled by the wrappings on the food, but Muffy and Chip, a married couple of liberal wasps, condescendingly befriend them and try to help break the wrappers. They are disrupted by the humans, who kill Muffy with a fly swatter and attempt to squish them with a shoe. Z rescues Bala from the sneaker, and the two ants at last find Insectopia, a trash can overfilled with decaying food. Bala begins to reciprocate Z's feelings.


title: Antz

text: After interrogating Weaver, Mandible learns that Z is looking for Insectopia and sends Cutter to find it. That night, Cutter arrives at Insectopia and forcibly flies Bala back to the colony while Z is away. Seeing Z's desperation at finding Bala gone, a drunken Chip, mourning over Muffy's death, generously flies him back to the colony.


title: Antz

text: When Z arrives, he encounters soldiers who forcibly direct him toward the Mega Tunnel. Along the way, he finds Bala held captive in Mandible's office. After he frees her, they both discover that Mandible's Mega Tunnel leads straight to the puddle next to Insectopia, which Mandible will use to drown the Queen Ant and the workers at the opening ceremony. Bala warns the Queen while Z attempts to stop the workers in time, but fails. Z and Bala unify the Queen and workers into building a ladder of themselves towards the surface as the water rises.


title: Antz

text: Meanwhile, Mandible gathers the soldiers on the surface and gloats he has created a new colony, where only the strong survive. When the worker ants break through the surface, Cutter betrays Mandible and rescues the worker ants "for the good of the colony". Enraged, Mandible attempts to tackle Cutter, but Z intervenes and takes the blow. He and Mandible fall back into the flooded tunnel, with Mandible striking a root and dying on impact. Z is nearly drowned, but is rescued by Cutter and resuscitated by Bala.


title: Antz

text: Z is praised for his heroism, and he and Bala become a couple. Together, they rebuild the colony, and Z narrates that he is finally content with his place in the world. The camera then zooms out to show the anthill is in Central Park in New York City.


title: Antz

text: The cast features several actors from movies Allen wrote, starred in and directed, including Stone ("Stardust Memories"), Stallone ("Bananas"), Hackman ("Another Woman"), and Walken ("Annie Hall"). Aykroyd later co-starred in Allen's "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion".


title: Antz

text: In 1988, Walt Disney Feature Animation was pitched a movie called "Army Ants", about a pacifist worker ant teaching lessons of independent thinking to his militaristic colony. Years later, Jeffrey Katzenberg, then chairman of Disney's film division, had left the company in a feud with CEO Michael Eisner over the vacant president position after the death of Frank Wells. Katzenberg would later go on to help co-found DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, and the three planned to rival Disney with the company's new animation division. Katzenberg at DreamWorks began developing projects he tried to pursue or suggested while at Disney, including "The Prince of Egypt", a collaboration with Aardman Animations which resulted in "Chicken Run", "", and "Army Ants". Also many ideas for the film were barrowed from a scrapped PDI film pitch for a computer animated film from 1991 called "Bugs" about microscopic robots that takes apart machinery.


title: Antz

text: Production began in May 1996, after production had already commenced on "The Prince of Egypt". DreamWorks had contracted Pacific Data Images (PDI) in Palo Alto, California to begin working on computer-animated films to rival Pixar's features. Woody Allen was cast in the lead role of Z, and much of Allen's trademark humor is present within the film. Allen himself made some uncredited rewrites to the script, to make the dialogue better fit his style of comedic timing. An altered line from one of his early directed films, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)" was included – "I was going to include you in my most erotic fantasies..."


title: Antz

text: After DreamWorks' acquisition of PDI, Pixar director John Lasseter, Steve Jobs, and others at Pixar were dismayed to learn from the trade papers that PDI's first project at DreamWorks would be another ant film, to be called "Antz". By this time, Pixar's project, then similarly called "Bugs", was well known within the animation community. In general, both "Antz" and "A Bug's Life" center on a young male ant, a drone with oddball tendencies, who struggles to win a princess's hand by saving their society. Lasseter and Jobs believed that the idea was stolen by Katzenberg. Katzenberg had stayed in touch with Lasseter after the acrimonious Disney split, often calling to check up. In October 1995, when Lasseter was overseeing postproduction work on "Toy Story" at the Universal Studios lot, where DreamWorks was also located, Lasseter and Andrew Stanton visited Katzenberg and they discussed their plans for "Bugs" in detail. Lasseter had high hopes for "Toy Story", and he was telling friends throughout the tight-knit computer-animation business to get cracking on their own films. "If this hits, it's going to be like space movies after "Star Wars"" for computer-animation studios, he told various friends. "I should have been wary," Lasseter later recalled. "Jeffrey kept asking questions about when it would be released."


title: Antz

text: When the trades indicated production on "Antz", Lasseter, feeling betrayed, called Katzenberg and asked him bluntly if it were true, Katzenberg confirming it. Katzenberg recalled "Antz" came from a 1991 story pitch by Tim Johnson that was related to Katzenberg in October 1994. Another source gives Nina Jacobson, one of Katzenberg's executives, as the person responsible for the "Antz" pitch. Lasseter refused to believe Katzenberg's story. Lasseter recalled that Katzenberg was under the impression that Disney was "out to get him" and that he realized that he was just cannon fodder in Katzenberg's fight with Disney. Eisner had decided not to pay Katzenberg his contract-required bonus, convincing Disney's board not to give him anything. Lasseter grimly relayed the news of "Antz" to Pixar employees but kept morale high. Privately, Lasseter told other executives that he and Stanton felt terribly let down.


title: Antz

text: At the time, the current Disney studio executives were starting a bitter competitive rivalry with Jeffrey Katzenberg and his new DreamWorks films. In 1995, Katzenberg announced "The Prince of Egypt" to debut in November 1998 as DreamWorks' first animated release. A year later, Disney scheduled "Bugs" to open on the same weekend, which infuriated Katzenberg. Katzenberg invited Disney executives to DreamWorks to negotiate a release date change for "Bugs", but the company refused to budge. DreamWorks pushed "Prince of Egypt" to the Christmas season and the studio had decided not to begin full marketing for "Antz" until after "Prince of Egypt" was released. Disney afterward announced release dates for films that were going to compete with "The Prince of Egypt", and both studios had to compete with Paramount Pictures, which was releasing "The Rugrats Movie" in November, based on Nickelodeon's animated series "Rugrats". Katzenberg suddenly moved the opening of "Antz" from March 1999 to October 1998, in order to successfully beat "A Bug's Life" into cinemas.


title: Antz

text: David Price writes in his 2008 book "The Pixar Touch" that a rumor, "never confirmed", was that Katzenberg had given PDI "rich financial incentives to induce them to whatever it would take to have "Antz" ready first, despite Pixar's head start". Jobs furiously called Katzenberg to explain that there was nothing he could do to convince Disney to change the date. Katzenberg said to him that Jobs himself had taught him how to conduct similar business long ago, explaining that Jobs had come to Pixar's rescue from near bankruptcy by making the deal for "Toy Story" with Disney. He flat-out told Jobs that he had enough power with Disney to convince them to change specific plans on their films. Lasseter also claimed Katzenberg had phoned him with a final proposition to delay "Antz" if Disney and Pixar changed the date of "A Bug's Life", but Katzenberg vehemently denied this. Jobs believed it was "a blatant extortion attempt".


title: Antz

text: As the release dates for both films approached, Disney executives concluded that Pixar should keep quiet on "Antz" and the feud concerning DreamWorks. Regardless, Lasseter publicly dismissed "Antz" as a "schlock version" of "A Bug's Life"; however, Lasseter later admitted that he never saw the film. Lasseter claimed that if DreamWorks and PDI had made the film about anything other than insects, he would have closed Pixar for the day so the entire company could go see it. Jobs and Katzenberg would not back down and the rivaling ant films provoked a press frenzy. "The bad guys rarely win," Jobs told the "Los Angeles Times". In response, DreamWorks’ head of marketing Terry Press suggested, "Steve Jobs should take a pill." Tensions would remain high between Jobs and Katzenberg for many years after the release of both films. According to Jobs, years later, Katzenberg approached him after the opening of "Shrek", and insisted that he had never heard the pitch for "A Bug's Life", reasoning that his settlement with Disney would have given him a share of the profits if that were so. In the end, Pixar and PDI employees kept up the old friendships that had arisen from working in computer animation for years before feature films.


title: Antz

text: The final product of both films are generally perceived to contrast one another in tone and certain plot points. "Antz" in the end seemed to be more geared towards older audiences, featuring moderate violence, mild sexual innuendoes, and profanity, as well as social and political satire. "A Bug's Life" was more family-friendly and lighthearted in tone and story. The two films especially differ in their artistic look: "Antz" played off more realistic aspects of ants and how they relate to other bugs, like termites and wasps, while "A Bug's Life" offered a more fanciful look at insects to better suit its story. "PopMatters" journalist J.C. Maçek III compared the two films and wrote, "The feud deepened with both teams making accusations and excuses and a release date war ensued. While "Antz" beat "A Bug's Life" to the big screen by two months, the latter film significantly out grossed its predecessor. Rip off or not, "Antz"'s critical response has proven to be almost exactly as positive as what "A Bug's Life" has enjoyed."


title: Antz

text: The original music for the film was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell. The soundtrack was released on November 3, 1998 by Angel Records.


title: Antz

text: Initially, Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted Hans Zimmer to compose the music, but he was too busy with "The Prince of Egypt" among other projects. Instead, Zimmer suggested two composers from his studio — either Harry Gregson-Williams or John Powell — both of whom had already collaborated on "Egypt".


title: Antz

text: On December 23, 1997, a teaser trailer for "Antz", depicting the opening scene with Z in an ant psychiatrist office, first played in theaters in front of select prints of "As Good as It Gets". Anticipation was generally high with adult moviegoers rather than families and children. Antz premiered at the 1998 Toronto Internation film Film Festival on September 19, 1998, and enter wide release on October 2, 1998.


title: Antz

text: "Antz" was released on VHS and DIVX on February 9, 1999, and on DVD on March 23, becoming the first feature-length CGI-animated film to be available on DVD. The original release used a 35mm print of the film, rather than an encoded version from the original files. A special edition version was released on February 14, 2003. The film was released on Blu-ray on October 16, 2018 for the film's 20th anniversary.


title: Antz

text: The film topped the box office in its opening weekend, earning $17,195,160 for a $7,021 average from 2,449 theatres. It surpassed "Stargate" to have the highest October opening weekend. This record would last for two years until it was beaten by "Meet the Parents" in 2000. In its second weekend, the film held the top spot again, with a slippage of only 14% to $14.7 million for a $5,230 average and expanding to 2,813 sites. It held well also in its third weekend, slipping only 24% to $11.2 million and finishing in third place, for a $3,863 average from 2,903 theatres. The film's widest release was 2,929 theatres, and closed on February 18, 1999. The film altogether picked up $90,757,863 domestically, but failed to outgross the competition with "A Bug's Life". The film picked up an additional $81 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $171.8 million.