title: Chunky Panday

text: This hope was realised with Panday starring as villains in the films "Begum Jaan", "Prassthanam", "Saaho" and web series "Abhay".


title: Chunky Panday

text: Panday married Bhavana Panday in January 1998. They have two daughters, Ananya, an actress, and Rysa.


title: Tiësto

text: Tijs Michiel Verwest (; born 17 January 1969), known professionally as Tiësto ( , ), is a Dutch DJ and music producer from Breda. He was voted "the Greatest DJ of All Time" by "Mix" magazine in a 2010/2011 poll amongst fans. In 2013, he was voted by "DJ Mag" readers as the "best DJ of the last 20 years". He is also regarded as the "Godfather of EDM" by many sources.


title: Tiësto

text: In 1997, he founded the label Black Hole Recordings with Arny Bink, where he released the "Magik" and "In Search of Sunrise" CD series. Tiësto met producer Dennis Waakop Reijers in 1998; the two have worked together extensively since then.


title: Tiësto

text: From 1998 to 2000, Tiësto collaborated with Ferry Corsten under the name Gouryella. His 2000 remix of Delerium's "Silence" featuring Sarah McLachlan exposed him to more mainstream audiences. In 2001, he released his first solo album, "In My Memory", which gave him several major hits that launched his career. He was voted World No. 1 DJ by "DJ Magazine" in its annual Top 100 DJs readership poll consecutively for three years from 2002 to 2004.


title: Tiësto

text: Just after releasing his second studio album "Just Be" he performed live at the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Athens, the first DJ to play live on stage at an Olympics. In April 2007 Tiësto launched his radio show "Tiësto's Club Life" on Radio 538 in the Netherlands and released his third studio album "Elements of Life". The album reached number one on the Belgian album chart as well on "Billboard" Top Electronic Albums in the U.S. and received a nomination for a Grammy Award in 2008. Tiësto released his fourth studio album "Kaleidoscope" in October 2009, followed by "A Town Called Paradise" in June 2014. He won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for his remixed version of John Legend's hit "All of Me" at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Tiësto

text: Tijs Michiel Verwest was born in Breda, North Brabant, on 17 January 1969. He began to cultivate his passion for music from age twelve. He used to listen to radioshows like the Ferry Maat "Soulshow" and "In The Mix" from Ben Liebrand. At age fourteen, he intensified his commitment to the art, and began DJing professionally at school parties. Between 1985 and 1994, Tiësto began a residency at several clubs in the Netherlands at the behest of his manager. At the Spock, a small club in Breda, he fine-tuned his own live style by performing from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. on weekends. In the beginning of his career as a DJ he mostly played new beat and acid house.


title: Tiësto

text: In 1994, he began releasing material on Noculan Records' sub-labels Chemo and Coolman. During these years, he produced hardcore and gabber tracks under such aliases as Da Joker and DJ Limited. Tiësto was later discovered by the general manager of Rotterdam-based Basic Beat Recordings.


title: Tiësto

text: In late 1994, Tiësto signed to Basic Beat where he met Arny Bink, Tiësto released records on the sub-label Trashcan, founded by Arny, and later created the Guardian Angel sub-label with Arny in which they introduced the popular "Forbidden Paradise" series. From 1995–96 he released four extended plays on Bonzai Jumps and XTC, sub-labels of Lightning Records. In 1997, he joined his friend Yves Vandichel on his sub-label, DJ Yves, a division of the now defunct Human Resource label XSV Music. In the fall of 1997, Bink and Tiësto decided to leave Basic Beat and create their own parent label, Black Hole Recordings, Trashcan was discontinued and Guardian Angel continued releasing music until 2002. Through Black Hole, Tiësto released the "Magik" series and also created two major sub-labels; SongBird and In Trance We Trust. From 1998 to 1999, he released music on Planetary Consciousness where he met A&R Hardy Heller and invited him to release some records on Black Hole.


title: Tiësto

text: In 1998, Tiësto joined forces with fellow Dutch deejay Ferry Corsten to create the trance-based duo of Gouryella. The first Gouryella track, also called "Gouryella", was released in May 1999 and became a huge hit, scoring various chart positions around the world, including a top-15 position in the UK Singles Chart. Tiësto showcased this track in "" as well as in his set at the first ID&T Innercity party (""), his first major breakthrough. The next single, entitled "Walhalla", also made it on the charts worldwide, peaking at No. 27 in the UK Singles Chart. Released via Ferry's Tsunami label, both singles went on to be certified Gold on record sales. During these years, Tiësto also collaborated with Benno de Goeij of Rank 1 under the name Kamaya Painters. In November 1999, he released the first installment of the "In Search of Sunrise" series. Since then, he performed monthly as a resident at Gatecrasher in Sheffield, and played a 12-hour set, his longest, in Amsterdam. On 31 December 1999, he performed at Trance Energy 2000, a special party held by ID&T for the turn of the millennium.


title: Tiësto

text: Together with Armin van Buuren, Tiësto created two projects in 2000; Alibi – "Eternity", which was released on Armind, and Major League – "Wonder Where You Are?", which came out on Black Hole. After the release of "Tenshi" in September 2000, Tiësto decided to concentrate on his solo work and left Ferry Corsten to take on the Gouryella project solely as his own. Through his first compilations and the "In Trance We Trust" series, he ended up introducing Armin van Buuren and Johan Gielen to the mainstream. "Summerbreeze" marked Tiësto's U.S. debut, a mix album that showcased his remix of Delerium's "Silence", which spent four weeks in the UK's Top Ten chart and reached number three in the "Billboard" dance chart. "In Search of Sunrise 2" was released in November 2000.


title: Tiësto

text: In 2001, Tiësto created a new sub-label, Magik Muzik, and released his first solo album, "In My Memory", which contained 5 major hits; "Lethal Industry", which was actually produced in 1999 and had only 3 copies released at that time, the track was officially released in 2001 which was remixed by Richard Durand in 2006 along with "Flight 643" which was another leading single that was later adapted with vocals by Suzanne Palmer and released as "643 (Love's on Fire)". Other tracks were "Obsession" in which Tiësto worked alongside Junkie XL, the instrumental tracks "Dallas 4PM" and "Suburban Train" with "Urban Train" as its vocal version. The last singles to be released were "In My Memory" which is the title track for the album as it only received high ratings in the United States and the opening track "Magik Journey" which opened Tiësto in Concert (2003). On 2 February 2002, Tiësto played nine consecutive hours during the second edition of the Dutch Dimension festival.


title: Tiësto

text: On 27 February, Tiësto was awarded a Zilveren ('Silver') Harp music award. The same year he also received a Lucky Strike Dance Award in the category Best DJ Trance/Progressive. In August he became part of Moby's Area2 Tour. For eighteen days he travelled through the United States with artists such as Moby himself, but also David Bowie and Busta Rhymes. In January 2003, Tiësto received the annual Dutch Popprijs ('Pop Award') during the Noorderslag festival. After touring with Moby, Tiësto remixed two songs from him, "We Are All Made of Stars" and "Extreme Ways" in the same year, having "We Are All Made of Stars" reach No. 13 in the Hot Dance Club Play. In 2002 he released his first "In Search of Sunrise" mix to feature a place on its name, "". On 28 March 2003; Tiësto, Dieselboy, Bad Boy Bill, and Noel Sanger joined the PlayStation 2 Dual Play tour. Tiësto and Noel's appearance began on 13 April and ended on 6 June.


title: Tiësto

text: His fame continued to increase for then known he has in the early 2000s, following his six-hour "Tiësto Solo" sets which he performed without other DJs or opening acts. This idea, of one DJ playing alone to a large crowd was new. Tiësto was the first DJ to hold a solo concert in a stadium; on 10 May 2003, he performed for 25,000 people in Arnhem's GelreDome, later called "Tiësto in Concert". He repeated the same type of concert the following year during two consecutive nights in late October. In addition to holding these two concerts for 35,000 of his fans, he held another concert for a crowd of 20,000 in Hasselt, Belgium the following week. DVDs of both his 10 May 2003 and 30 October 2004 concerts have been released, having the other DVD titled "Tiësto in Concert 2". The DVDs show the journey from the first idea to the main event, featuring live performances by Andain, Dinand Woesthoff, and Jan Johnston. The event includes live music and dancers performing at different times throughout the set.


title: Tiësto

text: In 2004, he released his second artist album "Just Be", which featured his first single "Traffic" which is the first non-vocal track to reach number one spot in the Dutch national charts for 23 years.


title: Tiësto

text: The track "Sweet Misery" was originally written for Evanescence but it did not meet the deadline for the release of their album. In support to his "Just Be" album, he played at Breda, Eindhoven, Utrecht, and Amsterdam; these stops were later named . On 20 May 2004 he was appointed Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The Athens Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (ATHOC) asked Tiësto to perform at the Olympic Games, making him the first DJ to play live on stage at an Olympic Games at the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Athens, where he played for 90 minutes.


title: Tiësto

text: Tiësto flew to Athens in January 2004 to have a meeting with the ATHOC. His "Tiësto in Concert" DVD caught their attention, after which he was asked to write more tracks based on his opening tune "Adagio for Strings" which would fit in with the Olympic spirit and combine the classical with the modern age. The first rehearsal was on 7 August, for an empty stadium; the second rehearsal was on 8 August, with 35,000 volunteers. The last rehearsal included almost 60,000 people in the stadium which was on 10 August.


title: Tiësto

text: During the course of his performance at the Olympics, the Dutch athletes started dancing in front of the DJ booth and had to be moved on by officials. The performance included new tracks produced especially for the Opening Ceremony and songs that were created to complement the spirit and theme of the ceremony. A condensed studio-recorded album of the songs played on the Olympic set was later released, including new songs specially composed for the occasion, entitled "Parade of the Athletes" in October 2004. In the liner notes, he noted the IOC requested that the music not contain any lyrics as they could be inadvertently misinterpreted. In late 2004, he began his touring across Latin America, with his release of "" in which he gained influence from the sun and sand in summer 2002. The tour continued in 2005, and Tiësto performed live in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, Peru, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia. Following the tours, "" was released in 2005, featuring a second CD for the first time in the "In Search of Sunrise" series.


title: Tiësto

text: In 2005, his "Perfect Remixes Vol. 3" compilation was released through Warlock Records, containing ten tracks which were created during the beginning of his career, between those is Junkie XL, Mauro Picotto and The Roc Project. On 20 August 2005, Verwest took "Tiësto in Concert" to the US when he played to 16,000 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena with Cirque du Soleil dancers.


title: Tiësto

text: For the second year in a row he performed live at a New Year's Eve/New Year's concert in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Orleans Arena to a sell-out crowd. His four-city U.S. tour was postponed due to the hurricane damage in New Orleans and Miami. BPM magazine has an annual poll in the US which is unveiled in the WMC, in 2005 Tiësto took the No. 1 spot. The influences of Los Angeles remained with him and would later influence his "In Search of Sunrise" compilation.


title: Tiësto

text: A wax sculpture of Tiësto was placed behind a turntable at Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam where visitors can mix Tiësto's music together. Stops were made in Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Croatia, Poland and South Africa. The United States tour that was part of "Tiësto in Concert" was dwarfed by his appearance at Sensation White in 2006 where he performed to over 45,000 people in Amsterdam. The compilation was launched in the Winter Music Conference in Miami Beach to support his release, Tiësto went on his In Search of Sunrise 5 Asia Tour for more than three weeks. In September 2006, Tiësto was admitted to hospital after experiencing pain in his chest. He was diagnosed with pericarditis and subsequently had to cancel a number of shows. With the diagnosis, he was invited to support Dance4Life to help teens who are not aware of the risks of HIV/AIDS.


title: Tiësto

text: On 6 April 2007, Tiësto began presenting a new weekly two-hour radio show called "Tiësto's Club Life" on Dutch radio station Radio 538. Ten days later, Tiësto released his third studio album "Elements of Life". The album moved 73,000 units in its April release, according to Nielsen SoundScan.


title: Tiësto

text: During the production of the album Tiësto in several cases sent a demo with the music to certain artists, and they replied back with the lyrics and vocals and other duration times. In the case of Christian Burns from BBMak, Tiësto met him through MySpace and contacted him and the production of the single "In the Dark". The album consists of rock, trance and experimental music, which shows the style Tiësto has grown throughout the years since his previous albums which contained lyrics, "In My Memory" and "Just Be". Producer Brian Transeau collaborated with Tiësto in three tracks, he composed "Bright Morningstar" and "Sweet Things", and performed the vocals in the single "Break My Fall". Together, they produced more tracks which were not released in the album, Tiësto has mentioned they would work again during the coming summer.


title: Tiësto

text: In December 2007 it was announced that the album was nominated for a Grammy Award, in the category "Best Electronic/Dance Album." The album also received gold certifications in Belgium, Hungary, Netherlands, and Romania. In support of the album, he embarked on the worldwide Elements of Life World Tour, and released the "" DVD in 2008.


title: Tiësto

text: Tiësto announced his residence at Privilege. He played sets in Ibiza every Monday, from 7 July to 22 September in the style of his "In Search of Sunrise" series. In 2007, he had released "" which was inspired by the island.


title: Tiësto

text: On 28 April, he released "", a recompilation of the "Elements of Life" album with all remixed versions. In mid-2008, Tiësto announced his , which was presented by Armani Exchange in May in support of his compilation and the previously released "In Search of Sunrise 6: Ibiza".


title: Tiësto

text: On 6 October 2009, he released his fourth studio album "Kaleidoscope", which featured artists such as Priscilla Ahn, Calvin Harris, Tegan & Sara and Nelly Furtado. Unlike his earlier albums, which were all mostly trance, Kaleidoscope explores other electronic genres, and is considered Tiesto's most experimental album. The first single "I Will Be Here" featuring Sneaky Sound System being released in July 2009. It reached number three on the much acclaimed Driscoll 5, and lasted there for 24 weeks in the beginning of 2012. In its first week, the album reached the Top 10 chart on iTunes. To release the album he set up a new record label called Musical Freedom after parting ways with Black Hole Recordings. Tiësto felt that his music was evolving in a new direction and his focus as an artist was moving away from what Black Hole was set up to support. His new tour, sharing the name of his new album, called Kaleidoscope World Tour commenced in late September.


title: Tiësto

text: On 16 March 2010, he released a greatest hits album, "Magikal Journey: The Hits Collection 1998–2008", a two disc album focusing on his most famous songs and remixes of his songs. On 7 April, he announced that he would start a new compilation series called "A New Dawn" with his own label Musical Freedom. In his interview Tiësto furthermore confirmed that he would no longer have any more involvement with Black Hole Recordings. On 31 August, "" was released, a remix album of his album "Kaleidoscope".


title: Tiësto

text: Also in 2009 and 2010, Tiësto contributed songs to both the "DJ Hero" and "DJ Hero 2" video games and is a playable character in the second game. He also produced a trance-flavored song for Memphis rap duo Three 6 Mafia's album called "Feel It", which features Sean Kingston and Flo Rida.


title: Tiësto

text: On 4 April 2011, his mix compilation "" was released. On 13 June, his studio album, "Kiss from the Past", was released under his alias Allure, and featured Christian Burns, JES, and Emma Hewitt.


title: Tiësto

text: In March 2012, satellite radio broadcaster Sirius XM launched Tiësto's Club Life Radio, one of five dance/electronic stations on the platform. Programming was "curated by Tiësto himself". The station ran until 2017.


title: Tiësto

text: "" was released worldwide physically on 25 June 2013 and it hit No. 16 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart. He followed up his third "Club Life" installment with the 2014 effort, "A Town Called Paradise". The album featured an assortment of guest stars and was preceded by two singles, "Red Lights" and "Wasted" – yielding his first two gold singles in the U.S. A medley from the album also soundtracks a presentation at the Bellagio (resort) fountain in Las Vegas, a first for a dance music artist.


title: Tiësto

text: In a 2014 interview with "DJ Magazine", Tiësto revealed why he left trance music. When asked whether his decision to leave the genre was influential to his popularity in the United States, the Dutch producer said: "Maybe, it's hard to say. I think I'd still be the 'Tiesto trance guy' but the difference is you're not really being relevant. Some of the old trance guys still have their following but it doesn't feel like anybody really cares – and that's the biggest difference. It's nice to be in touch with the new kids who are coming up – the 16 and 18-year olds who are producing house music see me as kind of a godfather, and it's really cool to be in touch with them. I think if I'd still been a trance DJ, they'd have been so disconnected with that sound that I wouldn't be much inspiration for them, and vice versa."


title: Tiësto

text: In 2015, at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, he won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for his remixed version of John Legend's hit "All of Me". The same year his fourth installment of the Club Life compilation series, titled "", was released through Musical Freedom. In April 2016, he launched a deep house label, AFTR:HRS, to promote deep house music. He appeared in the 2016 Grammy-nominated documentary film about American DJ and producer Steve Aoki, titled "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead".


title: Tiësto

text: On 14 January 2017, Tiësto was awarded the key to the city of Las Vegas. The day is now known as "Tiësto Day" in Clark County, Nevada. He was featured in the 2017 documentary starring Carl Cox and Martin Garrix, titled "What We Started".


title: Tiësto

text: On 6 October 2017, the fifth installment of the Club Life series entitled "Club Life, Vol. 5 – China" was published. The compilation album features tracks by John Christian, SWACQ, Tiësto and Z.Tao, and collaborations between Tiësto and Aloe Blacc, John Christian, Dzeko, Diplo, KSHMR, Talay Riley, Sevenn, Stargate, SWACQ and Vassy.


title: Tiësto

text: In March 2018, "Billboard" named Tiësto as number eight on their 2018 ranking of dance musicians titled Billboard Dance 100.


title: Tiësto

text: On 30 March 2018, Tiësto released his debut EP titled "I Like It Loud", featuring four songs that are collaborations with artists such as John Christian, Mesto, Matisse & Sadko and MOTi.


title: Tiësto

text: On 7 May 2020, Tiësto announced his seventh studio album "The London Sessions"; it was released 15 May 2020. The album features the previously released singles "Jackie Chan", "Ritual", "God Is a Dancer", "Blue" and "Nothing Really Matters".


title: Tiësto

text: On 25 September 2020, Tiësto released the song "The Business". On 21 January 2021, Tiësto released a remix version of the song titled "The Business, Pt. II" featuring American rapper Ty Dolla Sign.


title: Tiësto

text: On 28 May 2021, Tiësto released his remix of Ben Platt's "Imagine." Later that year, he released "Don't Be Shy" with Karol G, "The Motto" with Ava Max, Savage with Deorro and a remix of No Mienten and You got the Love by Becky Hill.


title: Tiësto

text: On 30 June 2022, Tiësto released "Hot In It" with English singer Charli XCX. The track was previously teased by Charli XCX and Tiësto multiple times on TikTok.


title: Tiësto

text: "Forbes" estimated that Tiësto's annual income for 2017 was $39 million, with an average nightly gross of $250,000.


title: Tiësto

text: On 6 January 2005, Tiësto performed in an outdoor fundraiser in De Dam, Amsterdam. The free event involved Dutch artists such as Tiësto, Dinand Woesthoff, BLØF, Acda & De Munnik, Di-rect, and Trijntje Oosterhuis and provided financial aid to the people who suffered from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in southern and southeastern Asia.


title: Tiësto

text: In April 2006, Tiësto was named the official worldwide ambassador for the Dance4Life foundation promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS. As the foundation's ambassador he has helped the organisation with fundraising along with recording the track "Dance4life" that he recorded with Maxi Jazz from Faithless. The foundation consists on a better way of living with safe sex in exchange of entertainment to the young crowd. The song was a huge success, peaking for five weeks in number 3 and eleven consecutive weeks in the Top 10 of the Dutch Singles Chart, it reached number 5 in Belgium, number 6 in Finland and also charting in the UK and Germany.


title: Tiësto

text: With the successful release of "Elements of Life", Tiësto and fashion designer Giorgio Armani collaborated on a limited edition Tiësto T-shirt; Tiësto's single "Sweet Things" comes with the shirt and includes an exclusive "A|X Remix" by Tom Cloud. The charity raised over U.S. $300,000.


title: Tiësto

text: In November 2012, Tiësto released a compilation album "Dance (RED) Save Lives" in collaboration with Product Red, with the aim of donating any proceeds from the album to the fight against AIDS.


title: Tiësto

text: In June 2014, Tiësto headlined the first-ever Thank You Festival, presented by Global Citizen in partnership with World Childhood Foundation. As a part of the festival campaign, Tiësto took part in supporting ThankYou.org. For every song shared, the Carlson Family Foundation donated $5 to the World Childhood Foundation.


title: Tiësto

text: In September 2019, Tiësto married model Annika Backes in Amangiri, Utah, after proposing to her in 2018. In November 2020, they welcomed their daughter, Viola Margreet Verwest, and on 27 August 2022, they welcomed their second child, Viggo Tiësto Verwest. He is a fan of Italian football club Inter Milan, and has collaborated with them on numerous occasions.


title: Toplessness

text: Toplessness refers to the state in which a woman's breasts, including her areolas and nipples, are exposed, especially in a public place or in a visual medium. The male equivalent is barechestedness, also commonly called shirtlessness.


title: Toplessness

text: Exposed breasts were and are normal in many indigenous societies. However, western countries have social norms around female modesty, often enforced by legal statutes, that require women to cover their breasts in public. In many jurisdictions, women who expose their breasts can be prosecuted for indecent exposure, although public breastfeeding is often exempted from public indecency laws.


title: Toplessness

text: Social norms around toplessness vary by context and location. Throughout history, women's breasts have been featured in art and visual media, from painting and sculpture to film and photography, and such representations are generally defended on the grounds of artistic merit. Toplessness may also be deemed acceptable on educational, medical, or political grounds. At many beaches and resort destinations, especially in Europe and Australia, women are either formally or informally permitted to sunbathe topless. However, societies tend to view breast exposure unfavorably, and subject it to stringent regulations or prohibitions, if its intent is perceived to be sexual arousal.


title: Toplessness

text: The word "topless" usually refers to a woman who is naked above her waist or hips or, at least, whose breasts are exposed to public view, specifically including her areolas and nipples. It can describe a woman who appears, poses, or performs with at least her breasts exposed, such as a "topless model" or "topless dancer", or to an activity undertaken while not wearing a top, such as "topless sunbathing". It may indicate a designated location where one might expect to find women not wearing tops, such as a "topless beach" or "topless bar". It can also be used to describe a garment that is specifically designed to reveal the breasts, such as the "topless swimsuit" (also known as the monokini) designed by Rudi Gernreich in the 1960s.


title: Toplessness

text: The word "topless" may carry sexual or exhibitionist connotations. Because of this, advocates of women's legal right to uncover their breasts wherever men may go bare-chested have adopted the alternative term "topfree", which is not perceived to have these connotations.


title: Toplessness

text: Barechestedness is the state of a man or boy wearing no clothes above the waist, exposing the upper torso. Bare male chests are generally considered acceptable in or around the house; at beaches, swimming pools and sunbathing areas; when exercising outside in hot weather; and in certain outdoor construction work settings. However, some stores and restaurants have a "no shirt, no service" rule to prevent barechested men from coming inside. While going barechested at outdoor activities may be acceptable, it is taboo at office workplaces, churches and other formal settings.


title: Toplessness

text: In most societies, male barechestedness is much more common than female toplessness, even among children. Exposure of the male pectoral muscles is often considered to be far less taboo than of the female breasts, despite some considering them equally erogenous. Male barechestedness is often ascribed to practical reasons such as heat, or the ability to move the body without being restricted by an upper body garment. In several sports it is encouraged or even obligatory to be barechested. Barechestedness may also be used as a display of power, or to draw attention to oneself, especially if the upper body muscles are well-developed.


title: Toplessness

text: Attitudes towards toplessness have varied considerably across cultures and over time. The lack of clothing above the waist for both females and males was the norm in traditional cultures of North America, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands until the arrival of Christian missionaries, and it continues to be the norm in many indigenous cultures today. The practice was also the norm in various Asian cultures before Muslim expansion in the 13th and 14th centuries.


title: Toplessness

text: In certain parts of northern India, some women did not wear an upper garment except during winter before the Muslim conquest of India. Women and men typically wore an antriya on the lower body and were nude from the waist up, aside from pieces of jewelry. This was the standard form of dress unless women opted to wear a sari, in which case they covered their upper bodies with a robe.


title: Toplessness

text: Toplessness was the norm for women among several communities of South India and Sri Lanka until the 19th or early 20th century. Such communities included the Tamils along the Coromandel Coast, Tiyan and other peoples on the Malabar Coast, Kadar of Cochin Island, Toda, Cheruman (Pulayar), Kuruba, Koraga, Nicobarese, and the Uriya.


title: Toplessness

text: In Thailand, the government of Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram issued a series of cultural standards between 1939 and 1942. Mandate 10 issued on 8 September 1941 instructed Thai people to not appear in public places "without being appropriately dressed". Inappropriate dress included "wearing no shirt or wearing a wraparound cloth". Before the introduction of Western dress codes, Thai women were depicted both fully clothed and topless in public. Until the early 20th century, women from northern Thailand wore a long tube-skirt ("Pha-Sin"), tied high above their waist and below their breasts, which were uncovered. In the late 19th century the influence of missionaries and modernization under King Chulalongkorn encouraged local women to cover their breasts with blouses.


title: Toplessness

text: In Laos, Frenchman Henri Mouhot took a picture in 1858 of Laotian women that depicted virgins with clothed breasts and married women with their entire breasts exposed in public, because the baring of breasts for breastfeeding was considered to be nonsexual.


title: Toplessness

text: In the Indonesian region, toplessness was the norm among the Dayak, Javanese, and the Balinese people of Indonesia before the introduction of Islam and contact with Western cultures. In Javanese and Balinese societies, women had gone topless to work or rest comfortably. Among the Dayak, only big-breasted women or married women with sagging breasts covered their breasts because their breasts interfered with their work.


title: Toplessness

text: In most Middle Eastern countries, toplessness has not been socially accepted since at least the beginning of Islam (7th century), because of Islamic standards for female modesty. However, toplessness was the norm in some pre-Islamic cultures in Arabia, Egypt, Assyria and Mesopotamia. Tunisia and Egypt are an exception among Arabic states, allowing foreign tourists to swim topless on private beaches.


title: Toplessness

text: Among Himba women of northern Namibia and Hamar of southern Ethiopia, besides other traditional groups in Africa, the social norm is for women to be bare-breasted. Female toplessness can also constitute an important aspect of indigenous cultural celebrations. For example, in the annual Reed Dance festival mature girls between the ages of 16 and 20 dance topless before the Zulu king.


title: Toplessness

text: Traditional topless practices can lead to cross-cultural and legal conflict. In 2004, Australian police banned members of the Papunya community from using a public park in the city of Alice Springs to practice a traditional Aboriginal dance that included topless women.


title: Toplessness

text: In the 16th century, women's "jeogori" (an upper garment) was long, wide, and covered the waist. The length of women's "jeogori" gradually shortened: it was approximately 65 cm in the 16th century, 55 cm in the 17th century, 45 cm in the 18th century, and 28 cm in the 19th century, with some as short as 14.5 cm. A "heoritti" (허리띠) or "jorinmal" (졸잇말) was worn to cover the breasts. The trend of wearing a short "jeogori" with a "heoritti" was started by the "gisaeng" and soon spread to women of the upper class. Among women of the common and lowborn classes, a practice emerged in which they revealed their breasts after childbirth to proudly indicate that they had given birth to a son, i.e., a male heir.


title: Toplessness

text: Travelers like the American Harry A. Franck remarked that they "displayed to the public gaze exactly that portion of the torso which the women of most nations take pains to conceal."


title: Toplessness

text: In the South Pacific, toplessness was common prior to contact with Western missionaries, but is less common today. On the French territory of Moorea, toplessness is common. In the Marshall Islands, women were traditionally topless before contact with Western missionaries and still do not sexually objectify female breasts as is common in much of Western society. Marshall Island women typically swim in their muumuus which today are made of a fine polyester that dries quickly. Wearing of bikinis and one-piece, breast-covering swimsuits in the Marshall Islands is mainly seen at Western, restricted-access beaches and swimming pools like those at private resorts or on United States government facilities on the Kwajalein Atoll within the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site.


title: Toplessness

text: In most Western societies, it is a cultural norm for girls after puberty, if not earlier, to have their breasts covered especially while in a public place, as an act of modesty. At least, it is not culturally acceptable for women to expose their nipples and areolas in public. Though many women do not regard their breasts as sexual, most would not go against the social norm, let alone challenge various laws that cover toplessness. Until recent times, women who went topless in a public place may have been cited for indecent exposure, lewdness or similar laws. Women and the law in most Western countries generally do not regard breasts as indecent. A small number of women campaign for what they call topfreedom, seeking to change these laws. The strictness of the etiquette varies depending on the social context. For example, at specific cultural events the norm may be relaxed, such as at Fantasy Fest, at Mardi Gras in New Orleans and at the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. The same may also apply at designated topless beaches.


title: Toplessness

text: In many European societies between the Renaissance and the 19th century, exposed breasts were acceptable while a woman's bared legs, ankles or shoulders were considered risqué. During the Renaissance, many artists were strongly influenced by classical Greek styles and culture, and images of nude and semi-nude subjects in many forms proliferated in art, sculpture and architecture of the period. In aristocratic and upper-class circles the display of breasts also invoked associations with classical Greek nude sculptures and art and a classic breast shape was at times regarded as a status symbol, as a sign of beauty, wealth or social position. To maintain youthful-looking bosoms women could employ wet nurses to breastfeed their children.


title: Toplessness

text: Breast-baring female fashions have been traced to 15th-century courtesan Agnès Sorel, mistress to Charles VII of France, whose gowns in the French court sometimes exposed one or both of her breasts. (Jean Fouquet's portrayal of the Virgin Mary with her left breast uncovered is believed to have taken Sorel as a model.) Aristocratic women sought to immortalise their breasts in paint, as in the case of Simonetta Vespucci, whose portrait with exposed breasts was painted by Piero di Cosimo in c. 1480. During the 16th century, women's fashions displaying their breasts were common in society, from Queens to common prostitutes, and emulated by all classes.


title: Toplessness

text: Similar fashions became popular in England during the 17th century when they were worn by Queen Mary II and by Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England, for whom architect Inigo Jones designed a masque costume that fully revealed both of her breasts.


title: Toplessness

text: In a survey of 190 different societies, researches found that very few associated exposed breasts with sexuality, but that there was an insistence that women conceal their breasts. Different standards apply to art, with one example being the dome of the United States Capitol featuring an 1865 fresco depicting goddesses with their breasts exposed.


title: Toplessness

text: Although some social attitudes to increased body exposure began to soften during the late 1960s, contemporary Western societies still generally view toplessness unfavorably. During a short period in 1964, "topless" dress designs appeared at fashion shows, but those who wore the dresses in public found themselves arrested on indecency charges. However, toplessness has come to be a feature in contemporary haute couture fashion shows.


title: Toplessness

text: A wide-ranging review of 190 different societies during 1951 found that few insisted that women conceal their breasts. In Europe, topless swimming and sunbathing on public beaches has become socially acceptable. In 1994–95, Australian researchers asked 118 college-age students to rate the behavior of women who go topless on an 8-point scale, ranging from "Women should have the same right to topless as men" to "Topless women are exhibitionists". They found that 88% of Australian university students of either gender considered it acceptable for women to go topless on public beaches, although they felt that women exposing their breasts in other contexts, such as public parks, was inappropriate. They did not find a correlation between exposed breasts and sexuality in social situations.


title: Toplessness

text: A more recent study of 116 college-age women in Australia found that those who had gone topless were more accepting of toplessness generally, more sexual, and had higher self-esteem and higher body image. In contemporary society, the extent to which a woman may expose her breasts depends on social and cultural context. Women's swimsuits and bikinis commonly reveal the tops and sides of the breasts. Displaying cleavage is considered permissible in many settings, and is even a sign of elegance and sophistication on many formal social occasions, but it may be prohibited by dress codes in settings such as workplaces and schools, where sexualized displays of the female breast may be considered inappropriate. In a number of cultures, including Europe and other Westernized countries outside the United States, there are fewer social restrictions against sunbathing or swimming topless. Despite being illegal or socially proscribed in many places in the United States, topless beaches have majority legislative support in some areas.


title: Toplessness

text: In Canada, a poll in 1992 found that 38% favored general female public toplessness. Following that survey, several legal rulings in Canadian courts from 1996 to 2000 made public toplessness legal, but very few women go topless in public.


title: Toplessness

text: Some cultures have even begun to expand social prohibitions on female toplessness to prepubescent and even infant girls. This trend toward covering the female nipple from infancy onward is particularly noticeable in the United States, Eastern Asia and the Middle East, but is much less common in Europe.


title: Toplessness

text: Around the world, it is common for women to breastfeed in public. In the United States during the 1990s and later, there were a number of legal incidents where women were harassed or cited for exposing their breasts while breastfeeding in public. A public backlash spurred legislators in some jurisdictions to specifically legalize public breastfeeding. The federal government passed a law in 1999 that specifically provides that "a woman may breastfeed her child at any location in a Federal building or on Federal property, if the woman and her child are otherwise authorized to be present at the location." Some women have engaged in acts of "lactivism", or acts of politically motivated public breastfeeding, to assert these rights.


title: Toplessness

text: In many indigenous, non-Western cultures it is generally acceptable for both men and women to go without clothing that covers the torso. Female toplessness can also be a traditional aspect in indigenous cultural celebrations. However, this can lead to cross-cultural and legal conflict. During 2004, Australian police banned female members of the Papunya community from using a public park in the city of Alice Springs to practice a traditional Aboriginal dance while topless.


title: Toplessness

text: Many societies consider women who expose their nipples and areolas as immodest and contrary to social norms. Most jurisdictions do not have laws prohibiting toplessness directly, but in many jurisdictions a topless woman may be socially or officially harassed or cited for public lewdness, indecent exposure, public indecency or disorderly conduct. Enforcement of such standards is subject to community standards, which are subject to change over time. Most prosecutions commence with a complaint being made to the police by a member of the public, and a judge would be required to adjudicate as to the indecency etc. of the exposure.


title: Toplessness

text: In the United States, GoTopless.org claims that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men. They further claim constitutional equality between men and women on being topless in public. They have successfully joined in legal challenges that have resulted in laws permitting women to expose their breasts just as men do in New York State and in Ontario, Canada. In 2009, they used 26 August (Women's Equality Day), as a day of national protest. The topfreedom movement has claimed success in a few instances in persuading federal courts in the United States to overturn some state laws on the basis of sex discrimination, arguing that a woman should be free to expose her chest in any context in which a man can expose his. A federal lawsuit filed in the 10th Circuit (Colorado), was decided at the appellate level. In September 2019, after spending over US$300,000, the city of Fort Collins decided to stop defending their ordinance and repeal it. This effectively gave females of all ages the right to go topless wherever males legally can in the jurisdiction of the 10th Circuit, which includes Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma.


title: Toplessness

text: In March 2008, after a year-long campaign by a pressure group, the Topless Front, Copenhagen's Culture and Leisure Committee concluded that there were no regulations against topless bathing by women in public swimbaths, thus no reason to disallow it. Also in 2008, the city council in Vancouver, British Columbia, location of the World Naked Bike Ride, gave women the right to go topless in public, not solely at swimming pools and beaches.


title: Toplessness

text: In 2009, members of the Swedish feminist organization "Bara Bröst" ("Just Breasts" or "Bare Breasts") went topless at the city pools in Malmö, Sweden. This triggered a vote by the city's sports and recreation committee, which backed away from requiring women to wear a top, only stipulating that everyone must wear a swimsuit. Their ruling allows women in Sweden to swim topless in Malmö's public swimming pools. "We don't decide what men should do with their torso, why then do women have to listen to the men. Moreover, many men have larger breasts than women", the committee chair said.


title: Toplessness

text: While an exposed breast in public can have many associated connotations, some women in America today argue the exposed breast is a symbol of liberation. They speak against the proposed notion that their rightful place was below their male counterparts. Throughout the late 20th century, more and more women began to link the struggle for female equality and the repossession of the female body. This can be especially seen in the work of Second Wave Feminists beginning in the early 1960s.


title: Toplessness

text: The reaction to exposed breast as a symbol of liberation was two-sided. Women who took part in the movement expressed their desire to turn attention away from the excessive eroticization of the female body in American popular culture to more essential societal needs. Opposition to the braless movement ironically viewed it as an attack to American morals and public decency. The bralessness movement evolved into a bare-breasted movement, which became another way for women to "thumb one's nose at society". While some women exposed their breasts individually, there was also an upsurge in topless demonstrations used to gather public attention for women's issues such as pornography and sexism. The sexualization of the breast is found only in a few Western nations, and this, many women argue, causes women to turn to plastic surgery and view their breasts as determinants of beauty rather than potentially nourishing life forces. Because of this, women are able to liberate their breasts as a way to gain attention, make political statements, and combat breast exposure laws' reinforcement of the supposed uncontrollable seductive nature of women's breasts.


title: Toplessness

text: In Western countries, toplessness in public often generates media coverage, leading some female political demonstrators to deliberately expose their breasts in public to draw media and public attention to their cause. For example, in January 2012, three members of the Ukrainian protest group FEMEN attracted worldwide media attention after they staged a topless protest at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.


title: Toplessness

text: Toplessness in a public place is most commonly practised or encountered near water, either as part of a swimming activity or sunbathing. The introduction of the bikini in 1946 and increasingly common glamour shots of popular actresses and models on either side of the Atlantic wearing the minimal swimsuit design played a large part in bringing the bikini and sunbathing into the mainstream.


title: Toplessness

text: In 1964, fashion designer Rudi Gernreich went further and designed and produced a topless swimsuit, which he called the "monokini" in the United States. Gernreich's monokini consisted primarily of a brief, close-fitting bottom that "extended from the midriff to the upper thigh" and was "held up by shoestring laces that make a halter around the neck". It first appeared in print in "Look" magazine, introducing the concept of a topless swimsuit into commercial fashion. He later said he did not really mean for the swimsuit to be popular as it was, but rather as a fantastical concept and prediction of the future. "[Women] drop their bikini tops already", he said, "so it seemed like the natural next step." A photograph of Peggy Moffitt, the famous model for the suit, appeared in "Women's Wear Daily", "Life" and numerous other publications.


title: Toplessness

text: Despite the negative reaction of fashion critics and church officials, shoppers purchased about 3000 of his swimsuit design at $24 each that summer, though the only woman reported as having worn it to a beach in the United States was arrested. The novelty of the design caught significant attention. "Life" writer Shana Alexander noted in an article about the introduction of the monokini in July 1964, "One funny thing about toplessness is that it really doesn't have much to do with breasts. Breasts of course are not absurd; topless swimsuits are. Lately people keep getting the two things mixed up."


title: Toplessness

text: The topless swimsuit failed to catch on in the United States. The Soviet government called it "barbarism" and a sign of social "decay". The New York City Police Department was strictly instructed to arrest any woman wearing a swimsuit by the commissioner of parks. In Chicago, a 19-year-old female beachgoer was fined US$100 for wearing a topless swimsuit on a public beach. Copious coverage of the event helped to send the image of exposed breasts across the world. Women's clubs and the church were particularly active in their condemnation. In Italy and Spain, the Catholic Church warned against the topless fashion. In France in 1964, Roger Frey led the prosecution of the use of the monokini, describing it as "a public offense against the sense of decency, punishable according to article 330 of the penal code. Consequently, the police chiefs must employ the services of the police so that the women who wear this bathing suit in public places are prosecuted." At St. Tropez on the French Riviera, where toplessness later became the norm, the mayor ordered police to ban toplessness and to watch over the beach via helicopter. Jean-Luc Godard, a founding mover of French New Wave cinema, incorporated a shot of a woman in a topless swimsuit on the Riviera into his film "A Married Woman", but it was edited out by the censors.


title: Toplessness

text: A number of Caribbean locations, especially those that were formerly French and Dutch colonies, permit nude and topless sunbathing, like the French West Indies islands of St. Barths, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Maarten.


title: Toplessness

text: Topless sunbathing slowly spread to other Western countries throughout Europe and Australia, many of which now allow topless sunbathing on some or all of their beaches, either through legal statute or by generally accepted practice, and beaches were designated for nude or topless bathers. A topless, or top-optional, beach differs from a nude beach in that beach goers of both sexes are required to keep their genital area covered, although females have the option to remove their tops without fearing legal prosecution or official harassment.


title: Toplessness

text: In the late 2000s, a number of French newspapers reported that the number of women sunbathing topless on French beaches had markedly declined, and that younger French women had become more disapproving of exposing breasts in public. The French edition of "Elle" magazine published a cover story in 2014, ""La Fin Du Topless Sur La Plage?"" ("The End of Toplessness on the Beach?"), that offered several reasons for the decline, including concerns about skin cancer, sexualised representations of topless women, the use of bare breasts in political activism, and concerns about topless images being posted on social media. A 2019 survey of 5,000 women from five European countries found that topless sunbathing was still popular in Spain, with 48 percent of women aged between 18 and 49 having engaged in the practice, down just 1 percent since the survey was last conducted in 2016. The numbers declined more significantly between 2016 and 2019 for German women (from 41 to 34 percent), French women (29 to 22 percent), British women (26 to 19 percent) and Italian women (20 to 15 percent). Topless sunbathing was less common among young women, with 13 percent of French women aged 18–29 saying in 2019 that they removed their tops on the beach, compared to 25 percent of French women aged 40–49. Surveys show considerable resistance to topless sunbathing in other European countries. Sweden's tolerance for the practice fell after a brief period of popularity in the 1970s and into the 80s. Many of the Swedes surveyed by Skyscanner in 2010 found public toplessness "indecent" and "offensive".


title: Toplessness

text: The French have traditionally been relaxed with nudity and toplessness in entertainment, and dancers and actresses performed topless during the 1910s and beyond in musical theater and cinema. Toplessness in entertainment has survived to this day at the Folies Bergère and the Moulin Rouge. Some female groups have also performed topless, such as the two female groups called The Ladybirds (one in San Francisco () and another in Copenhagen ()), which performed topless in the late 1960s.


title: Toplessness

text: Women are also at times employed in adult-only venues to perform or pose topless in forms of commercial erotic entertainment. Such venues can range from downmarket strip clubs and topless bars to upmarket cabarets, such as the Moulin Rouge. Topless entertainment may also include competitions such as wet T-shirt contests, especially during Spring break in the United States, in which women display their breasts through translucent wet fabric—and may end up removing their T-shirts in front of the audience.


title: Toplessness

text: Female toplessness has also become somewhat common during Mardi Gras in New Orleans during which women "flash" (briefly expose) their breasts in return for strings of plastic beads, and at Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, where floats occasionally feature topless women.


title: Toplessness

text: Pasties are sometimes worn by erotic dancers or burlesque entertainers to give the impression of toplessness while avoiding prosecution under local public indecency laws which prohibit exposure of the nipple and areolas. To stay within the law, liquid latex pasties may be used. Pasties may be worn by neo-burlesque performers and are also found in night clubs, fetish parties and parades, such as Pride Parades.


title: Toplessness

text: In many Western cultures today, images of topless women are regularly featured in magazines, calendars, and other print media, often covering their breasts in a "handbra", that is, the use of the woman's hands or arms to cover their breasts, especially the nipples and areolas. In the United Kingdom, following a tradition established by the British newspaper "The Sun" in 1970, several mainstream tabloid newspapers featured topless female models on their third page, known as "Page 3" girls, although this is no longer the case. The subject of glamour photography is often a topless woman.


title: Toplessness

text: Photographers such as Jock Sturges and Bill Henson have been prosecuted or been embroiled in controversy for producing images of topless teen girls as part of their ongoing work.


title: Toplessness

text: In the 1920s, nudity, including toplessness, was featured in some Hollywood silent films as well as on the stage, though not without objections from various groups, and several jurisdictions in the United States and elsewhere set up film censorship boards to censor films. In the 1930s, the Hays Code brought an end in Hollywood films to nudity in all its forms. To remain within the censors' guidelines or community standards of decency and modesty, breasts of actresses in an otherwise topless scene would be covered, especially the nipples and areolas, with their hands (using a "handbra" stance), arms, towel, pasties, some other object, or the angle of the body in relation to the camera.


title: Toplessness

text: Film making in other centres were not subject to the Hays Code, but were subject to various national censorship regimes. The Italian film "Era lui... sì! sì!" (1951), for example, also had a French version which included topless actresses in the harem scene. This version was especially made for the French market, where censorship was less rigorous than in Italy. Social and official attitudes to toplessness and nudity had eased by the 1960s and the Hays Code came under repeated challenge. For example, in "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962) all Tahitian girls were topless and there was a long native dance scene, though the topless female dancers' breasts were covered by leis. The historical epic film "Hawaii" (1966) also featured scenes of topless native girls, their breasts being strategically covered by leis.


title: Toplessness

text: In 1968 the Hays Code was replaced by the MPAA film rating system. Women now appear topless in mainstream cinema, although usually somewhat briefly. Film critic Roger Ebert argued that there was a double standard in relation to the toplessness of "native" women. He wrote that the producers of "Rapa-Nui" (1994), which featured repeated scenes of bare-breasted native women, got away with ongoing toplessness because of the women's brown skin:


title: Toplessness

text: Besides those actresses who have appeared nude or partially nude in films, it has also become increasingly common for actresses to appear topless in movies. Notable actresses who have appeared topless include Jane Fonda ("Coming Home", 1978), Julie Andrews ("S.O.B.", 1981), Kate Winslet ("Titanic", 1997), Gwyneth Paltrow ("Shakespeare in Love", 1998), Reese Witherspoon ("Twilight", 1998), Rene Russo ("The Thomas Crown Affair", 1999), Katie Holmes ("The Gift", 2000), and Halle Berry ("Swordfish", 2001). In an interview in March 2007, Halle Berry said that her toplessness in "Swordfish" was "gratuitous" to the movie, but that she needed to do the scene to get over her fear of nudity, and that it was the best thing she did for her career. Having overcome her inhibitions, she went on to a role in "Monster's Ball", which included a nude scene and which won her an Oscar for Best Actress. Some actresses prefer not to expose their breasts and use a body double.


title: Toplessness

text: Pasties were and may still be worn by some actresses while filming an otherwise apparently topless or nude scene, which is not caught by the camera angle.


title: Toplessness

text: On 12 June 1964, the "San Francisco Chronicle" featured a woman wearing a monokini with her exposed breasts on its first page. Two weeks later on 22 June 1964, Carol Doda started dancing topless wearing a monokini (designed by Rudi Gernreich) at the Condor Club in San Francisco's North Beach district. Her debut as a topless dancer was featured in "Playboy" magazine in April 1965. Doda was the first modern topless dancer in the United States, renewing the burlesque era of the early 20th century in the U.S. San Francisco Mayor John Shelley said, "topless is at the bottom of porn." Within a few days, women were baring their breasts in many of the clubs lining San Francisco's Broadway St., ushering in the era of the topless bar.


title: Toplessness

text: San Francisco public officials tolerated the topless bars until 22 April 1965, when the San Francisco Police Department arrested Doda on indecency charges. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the police department, calling for release of both Doda and free speech activist Mario Savio, held in the same station. Doda rapidly became a symbol of sexual freedom, while topless restaurants, shoeshine parlors, ice-cream stands and girl bands proliferated in San Francisco and elsewhere. Journalist Earl Wilson wrote in his syndicated column, "Are we ready for girls in topless gowns? Heck, we may not even notice them." English designers created topless evening gowns inspired by the idea. The "San Francisco Examiner" published a real estate advertisement that promised "bare top swimsuits are possible here".


title: Toplessness

text: The artifacts in the Ancient Siam open-air museum near Bangkok depict Thai women topless. The Ramakien Mural representing the epic lives of the Thai people found at the Wat Phra Kaew Temple depict women wearing only a skirt in public.


title: Toplessness

text: As a result of the Renaissance, in many European societies artists were strongly influenced by classical Greek styles and culture. As a result, images of nude and semi-nude subjects in many forms proliferated in art and sculpture.


title: Toplessness

text: During the Victorian era, French Orientalist painters such as Jean-Léon Gérôme presented an idealized depiction of female toplessness in Muslim harem baths, while Eugène Delacroix, a French romantic artist, invoked images of liberty as a topless woman.


title: Toplessness

text: In European pre-historic societies, sculptures of female figures with pronounced or highly exaggerated breasts were common. A typical example is the so-called Venus of Willendorf, one of many Venus figurines from the Paleolithic era with ample hips and bosom. Artifacts such as bowls, rock carvings and sacred statues with breasts have been recorded from 15,000 BC up to late antiquity all across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Many female deities representing love and fertility were associated with breasts and breast milk. Figures of the Phoenician goddess Astarte were represented as pillars studded with breasts. Isis, an Egyptian goddess who represented, among many other things, ideal motherhood, was often portrayed as suckling pharaohs, thereby confirming their divine status as rulers. Even certain male deities representing regeneration and fertility were occasionally depicted with breast-like appendices, such as the river god Hapy who was considered to be responsible for the annual overflowing of the Nile. Female breasts were also prominent in the Minoan civilization in the form of the famous Snake Goddess statuettes.


title: Toplessness

text: In Ancient Greece there were several cults worshiping the "Kourotrophos", the suckling mother, represented by goddesses such as Gaia, Hera and Artemis. The worship of deities symbolized by the female breast in Greece became less common during the first millennium. The popular adoration of female goddesses decreased significantly during the rise of the Greek city states, a legacy which was passed on to the later Roman Empire.


title: Toplessness

text: During the middle of the first millennium BC, Greek culture experienced a gradual change in the perception of female breasts. Women in art were covered in clothing from the neck down, including female goddesses like Athena, the patron of Athens who represented heroic endeavor. There were exceptions: Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was more frequently portrayed fully nude, though in postures that were intended to portray shyness or modesty, a portrayal that has been compared to modern pin-ups by historian Marilyn Yalom. Although nude men were depicted standing upright, most depictions of female nudity in Greek art occurred "usually with drapery near at hand and with a forward-bending, self-protecting posture". A popular legend at the time was of the Amazons, a tribe of fierce female warriors who socialized with men only for procreation and even removed one breast to become better warriors. The legend was a popular motif in art during Greek and Roman antiquity and served as an antithetical cautionary tale.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: The Age of Aquarius, in astrology, is either the current or forthcoming astrological age, depending on the method of calculation. Astrologers maintain that an astrological age is a product of the earth's slow precessional rotation and lasts for 2,160 years, on average (one Great Year equals 25,920-year period of precession / 12 zodiac signs = 2,160 years).


title: Age of Aquarius

text: There are various methods of calculating the boundaries of an astrological age. In sun-sign astrology, the first sign is Aries, followed by Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, whereupon the cycle returns to Aries and through the zodiacal signs again. Astrological ages proceed in the opposite direction. Therefore, the Age of Aquarius follows the Age of Pisces.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: The approximate 2,160 years for each age corresponds to the average time it takes for the vernal equinox to move from one constellation of the zodiac into the next. This average can be computed by dividing the earth's 25,800 year gyroscopic precession period by 12, the number of zodiacal signs. This is only a rough calculation, as the length of time it takes for a complete precession is currently increasing. A more accurate set of figures is 25,772 years for a complete cycle and 2,147.5 years per astrological age. According to various astrologers' calculations, approximate dates for entering the Age of Aquarius range from 1447 CE (Terry MacKinnell) to 3597 CE (John Addey).


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Astrologers do not agree on when the Aquarian age will start or even if it has already started. Campion (1999) lists various references from mainly astrological sources for the start of the Age of Aquarius. Based on Campion's summary, most published materials on the subject state that the Age of Aquarius arrived in the 20th century (29 claims), with the 24th century in second place with 12 claimants.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Astrological ages are taken to be associated with the precession of the equinoxes. The slow wobble of the earth's rotation axis on the celestial sphere is independent of the diurnal rotation of the earth on its own axis and the annual revolution of the earth around the sun. Traditionally this 25,800 year-long cycle is calibrated, for the purposes of determining astrological ages, by the location of the sun in one of the 12 zodiac constellations at the vernal (Spring) equinox, which corresponds to the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator, marking the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere each year. Roughly every 2,150 years the sun's position at the time of the vernal equinox will have moved into a new zodiacal constellation.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: In 1929 the International Astronomical Union defined the edges of the 88 official constellations. The edge established between Pisces and Aquarius officially locates the beginning of the Aquarian Age around 2600 CE. Many astrologers dispute this approach because of the varying sizes and overlap between the zodiacal constellations. They prefer the long-established convention of equally-sized signs, spaced every 30 degrees along the ecliptic, which are named for the 12 background zodiacal constellations.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Astrologers believe that an astrological age affects humanity, possibly by influencing the rise and fall of civilizations or cultural tendencies.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Traditionally, Aquarius is associated with electricity, computers, flight, democracy, freedom, humanitarianism, idealism, modernization, astrology, nervous disorders, rebellion, nonconformity, philanthropy, veracity, perseverance, humanity, and irresolution.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Among other dates, one view is that the Age of Aquarius arrived around 1844, with the harbinger of Siyyid ʿAlí Muḥammad (1819–1850), who founded Bábism.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Marcia Moore and Mark Douglas promoted the view that, although no one knows when the Aquarian Age begins, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the discovery of electricity are all attributable to the Aquarian Age. Moore and Douglas make a number of predictions about the trends that they believe will develop in the Aquarian Age.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: A common position expressed by many astrologers sees the Age of Aquarius as that time when humanity takes control of the Earth and its own destiny as its rightful heritage, with the destiny of humanity being the revelation of truth and the expansion of consciousness, and that some people will experience mental enlightenment in advance of others and therefore be recognized as the new leaders in the world.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Proponents of medieval astrology suggest that the Pisces world where religion is the opiate of the masses will be replaced in the Aquarian Age by a world ruled by secretive, power-hungry elites seeking absolute power over others; that knowledge in the Aquarian Age will only be valued for its ability to win wars; that knowledge and science will be abused, not industry and trade; and that the Aquarian Age will be a Dark Age in which religion is considered offensive.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Another view suggests that the rise of scientific rationalism, combined with the fall of religious influence, the increasing focus on human rights since the 1780s, the exponential growth of technology, plus the advent of flight and space travel, are evidence of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: A "wave" theory of the shifting Great Ages suggests that the Age of Aquarius will not arrive on a given date but is instead emerging in influence over many years, similar to how the tide surges forward incrementally rather than all at once.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Rudolf Steiner believed that the Age of Aquarius will arrive in 3573. In Steiner's approach, each age is exactly 2,160 years. Based on this structure, the world has been in the Age of Pisces since 1413. Rudolf Steiner had spoken about two great spiritual events: the return of Christ in the ethereal world (and not in a physical body), because people must develop their faculties until they can reach the ethereal world; and the incarnation of Ahriman, Zoroaster's "destructive spirit" that will try to block the evolution of humanity.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: In an article about feminism in the French newspaper "La Fronde" from February 26, 1890, August Vandekerkhove stated: "About March, 21st this year the cycle of Aquarius will start. Aquarius is the house of the woman". He adds that is in this age the woman will be equal to the man.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: Gnostic philosopher Samael Aun Weor declared February 4, 1962 to be the beginning of the "Age of Aquarius", heralded by the alignment of the first six planets, the Sun, the Moon and the constellation Aquarius.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: The expression "Age of Aquarius" in popular culture usually refers to the heyday of the hippie and New Age movements in the 1960s and 1970s.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: The 1967 musical "Hair", with its opening song "Aquarius" and the line "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius", brought the Aquarian age concept to the attention of audiences worldwide. However, the song further defines this dawning of the age within the first lines: "When the Moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars". Astrologer Neil Spencer denounced the lyrics as "astrological gibberish", noting that Jupiter aligns with Mars several times a year and the Moon is in the 7th House for two hours every day.


title: Age of Aquarius

text: These lines are considered by critics to be poetic license, although some people have taken them literally. An example is the identification of Valentine's Day 2009 as the "perfect alignment to support our collective manifestation of love and peace and dawning of the Age of Aquarius".


title: United States Army Rangers

text: United States Army Rangers, according to the US Army's definition, are personnel, past or present, in any unit that has the official designation "Ranger". The term is commonly used to include graduates of the US Army Ranger School, even if they never served in a "Ranger" unit. The vast majority of Ranger school graduates never serve in Ranger units and are considered "Ranger qualified".


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In a broader and less formal sense, the term "ranger" has been used, officially and unofficially, in North America since the 17th century, to describe light infantry in small, independent units—usually companies. The first units to be officially designated Rangers were companies recruited in the colonies of New England by the colonial militia to fight in King Philip's War (1676). Following that time, the term became more common in official usage, during the French and Indian Wars of the 18th century. The US military has had "Ranger" companies since the American Revolution. British units later called "Rangers" have often also had historical links of some kind to British North America.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The 75th Ranger Regiment is an elite airborne light infantry combat formation within the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC). The six battalions of the modern Rangers have been deployed in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and saw action in several conflicts, such as those in Panama and Grenada. The Ranger Regiment traces its lineage to three of six battalions raised in World War II, and to the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)—known as "Merrill's Marauders", and then reflagged as the 475th Infantry, then later as the 75th Infantry.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The Ranger Training Brigade (RTB)—headquartered at Fort Benning—is an organization under the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and is separate from the 75th Ranger Regiment. It has been in service in various forms since World War II. The Ranger Training Brigade administers Ranger School, the satisfactory completion of which is required to become Ranger qualified and to wear the Ranger Tab.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Rangers served in the 17th and 18th-century wars between American colonists and Native American tribes. British regulars were unaccustomed to frontier warfare and so Ranger companies were developed. Rangers were full-time soldiers employed by colonial governments to patrol between fixed frontier fortifications in reconnaissance providing early warning of raids. In offensive operations, they were scouts and guides, locating villages and other targets for taskforces drawn from the militia or other colonial troops.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In Colonial America, "The earliest mention of Ranger operations comes from Capt. John "Samuel" Smith," who wrote in 1622, "When I had ten men able to go abroad, our common wealth was very strong: with such a number I ranged that unknown country 14 weeks." Robert Black also stated that,


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In 1622, after the Berkeley Plantation Massacre... grim-faced men went forth to search out the Indian enemy. They were militia—citizen soldiers—but they were learning to blend the methods of Indian and European warfare... As they went in search of the enemy, the words "range, ranging and Ranger" were frequently used... The American Ranger had been born.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The father of American ranging is Colonel Benjamin Church (c. 1639–1718). He was the captain of the first Ranger force in America (1676). Church was commissioned by the Governor of the Plymouth Colony Josiah Winslow to form the first ranger company for King Philip's War. He later employed the company to raid Acadia during King William's War and Queen Anne's War.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Benjamin Church designed his force primarily to emulate Native American patterns of war. Toward this end, Church endeavored to learn to fight like Native Americans from Native Americans. Americans became rangers exclusively under the tutelage of the Native American allies. (Until the end of the colonial period, rangers depended on Native Americans as both allies and teachers.)


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Church developed a special full-time unit mixing white colonists selected for frontier skills with friendly Native Americans to carry out offensive strikes against hostile Native Americans in terrain where normal militia units were ineffective. His memoirs "Entertaining Passages relating to Philip's War" is considered the first American military manual, which was published in 1716.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Under Church served the father and grandfather of two famous rangers of the eighteenth century: John Lovewell and John Gorham respectively. John Lovewell served during Dummer's War (also known as Lovewell's War). He lived in present-day Nashua, New Hampshire. He fought in Dummer's War as a militia captain, leading three expeditions against the Abenaki tribe. John Lovewell became the most famous Ranger of the eighteenth century.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: During King George's War, John Gorham established "Gorham's Rangers". Gorham's company fought on the frontier at Acadia and Nova Scotia. Gorham was commissioned a captain in the British Army in recognition of his outstanding service. He was the first of three prominent American rangers–himself, his younger brother Joseph Gorham and Robert Rogers—to earn such commissions in the British Army. (Many others, such as George Washington, were unsuccessful in their attempts to achieve a British rank.)


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Rogers' Rangers was established in 1751 by Major Robert Rogers, who organized nine Ranger companies in the American colonies. Roger's Island, in Modern Day Fort Edward, NY, is considered the "spiritual home" of the United States Special Operations Forces, particularly the United States Army Rangers. These early American light infantry units, organized during the French and Indian War, bore the name "Rangers" and were the forerunners of the modern Army Rangers. Major Rogers drafted the first currently-known set of standard orders for rangers. These rules, Robert Rogers' 28 "Rules of Ranging", are still provided to all new Army Rangers upon graduation from training, and served as one of the first modern manuals for asymmetric warfare.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: When the American Revolution began, Major Robert Rogers allegedly offered his services to General George Washington. Fearing that Rogers was a spy, Washington refused. An incensed Rogers instead joined forces with the Loyalists, raised the Queen's Rangers, and fought for the Crown. While serving with the British, Col. Rogers was responsible for capturing America's most famous spy in Nathan Hale.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: After Colonel Robert Rogers left the Queen's Rangers, he travelled to Nova Scotia, where he raised King's Rangers, in 1779. The regiment was disbanded in 1783.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Not all Rogers' Rangers went with him, however, including such notable figures as Israel Putnam and John Stark.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Later on during the war, General Washington ordered Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton to select an elite group of men for reconnaissance missions. This unit was known as Knowlton's Rangers, and is credited as the first official Ranger unit (by name) for the United States. This unit carried out intelligence functions rather than combat functions in most cases, and as such are not generally considered the historical parent of the modern day Army Rangers. Instead, Knowlton's Rangers gave rise to the modern Military Intelligence branch (although it was not a distinct branch until the 20th century).


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In June 1775 Ethan Allen and Seth Warner had the Continental Congress create a Continental Ranger Regiment including many of the famed Green Mountain Boys. Warner was elected the Regiment's Colonel with the Rangers forming part of the Continental Army's Invasion of Quebec in 1775. The Regiment was disbanded in 1779.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" Revolutionary commander of South Carolina, developed irregular methods of warfare during his guerrilla period in South Carolina. He is credited in the lineage of the Army Rangers, as is George Rogers Clark who led an irregular force of Kentucky/Virginia militiamen to capture the British forts at Vincennes, Indiana and Kaskaskia, Illinois.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In January 1812 the United States authorized six companies of United States Rangers who were mounted infantry with the function of protecting the Western frontier. Five of these companies were raised in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. A sixth was in Middle Tennessee, organized by Capt. David Mason. The next year, 10 new companies were raised. By December 1813 the "Army Register" listed officers of 12 companies of Rangers. The Ranger companies were discharged in June 1815.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: During the Black Hawk War, in 1832, the Battalion of Mounted Rangers, an early version of the cavalry in the U.S. Army was created out of frontiersmen who enlisted for one year and provided their own rifles and horses. The battalion was organized into six companies of 100 men each that was led by Major Henry Dodge. After their enlistment expired there was no creation of a second battalion. Instead, the battalion was reorganized into the 1st Dragoon Regiment.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Several units that were named and functioned similarly to Rangers fought in the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865, such as the Loudoun Rangers that consisted of Quaker and German farmers from northern Loudoun County. They were founded by Captain Samuel C. Means, a Virginian refugee who was approached by Washington to form two detachments on 20 June 1862. The Loudoun Rangers conducted periodic raids in Loudoun, Clarke and Jefferson counties. Military historian Darl L. Stephenson stated that a unit called the Blazer's Scouts were also a precursor to Army Rangers during the Civil War. Aside from conducting similar irregular warfare on Confederate forces in Richmond, Mississippi and Tennessee, its members were also descendants of the first ranger groups, organized by Robert Rogers in the French and Indian War. The Blazer's Scouts were instrumental in fighting off other irregular forces such as partisan bushwhackers and Mosby's Rangers, another unit of Rangers that fought for the Confederacy.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Major General Lucian Truscott of the U.S. Army was a liaison officer with the British General Staff. In 1942 he submitted a proposal to General George Marshall that an American unit be set up "along the lines of the British Commandos". Five Ranger Battalions would be organized in the European Theatre including the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th; the 6th would be organized in the Pacific Theatre. The 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Ranger Battalions were "Ghost" formations, which were part of the deception plan known as "Operation Quicksilver."


title: United States Army Rangers

text: On 19 June 1942 the 1st Ranger Battalion was sanctioned, recruited, and began training in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. Eighty percent of the original Rangers came from the 34th Infantry Division.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: A select fifty or so of the first U.S. Rangers were dispersed through the British Commandos for the Dieppe Raid in August 1942; these were the first American soldiers to see ground combat in the European theater.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Together with the ensuing 3rd and 4th Ranger Battalions they fought in North Africa and Italy commanded by Colonel William Orlando Darby until the Battle of Cisterna (29 January 1944) when most of the Rangers of the 1st and 3rd Battalions were captured. Of the 767 men in the battalions 761 were killed or captured. The remaining Rangers were absorbed into the Canadian-American First Special Service Force under Brigadier General Robert T. Frederick. They were then instrumental in operations in and around the Anzio beachhead that followed Operation Shingle.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The 29th Ranger Battalion was a temporary unit made of selected volunteers from the 29th Infantry Division that was in existence from December 1942 to November 1943.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Before the 5th Ranger Battalion landing on Dog White sector on Omaha Beach, during the Invasion of Normandy, the 2nd Ranger Battalion scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, a few miles to the west, to destroy a five-gun battery of captured French Canon de 155 mm GPF guns. The gun positions were empty on the day and the weapons had been removed some time before to allow the construction of casements in their place. (One of the gun positions was destroyed by the RAF in May—prior to D-day—leaving five missing guns). Under constant fire during their climb, they encountered only a small company of Germans on the cliffs and subsequently discovered a group of field artillery weapons in trees some to the rear. The guns were disabled and destroyed, and the Rangers then cut and held the main road for two days before being relieved. All whilst being reinforced by members of the 5th Ranger Battalion who arrived at 6pm on 6 June from Omaha Beach. More 5th Ranger units arrived by sea on 7 June when some of their wounded along with German prisoners were taken away to the waiting ships.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Two separate Ranger units fought the war in the Pacific Theater. The 98th Field Artillery Battalion was formed on 16 December 1940 and activated at Fort Lewis in January 1941. On 26 September 1944, they were converted from field artillery to light infantry and became 6th Ranger Battalion. 6th Ranger Battalion led the invasion of the Philippines and executed the raid on the Cabanatuan POW camp. They continued fighting in the Philippines until they were deactivated on 30 December 1945, in Japan.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: After the first Quebec Conference, the 5307th Composite Unit (provisional) was formed with Frank Merrill as the commander, its 2,997 officers and men became popularly known as Merrill's Marauders. They began training in India on 31 October 1943. Much of the Marauders training was based on Major General Orde Wingate of the British Army who specialized in deep penetration raids behind Japanese lines. The 5307th Composite Group was composed of the six color-coded combat teams that would become part of modern Ranger heraldry, they fought against the Japanese during the Burma Campaign. In February 1944, the Marauders began a march over the Himalayan mountain range and through the Burmese jungle to strike behind the Japanese lines. By March, they had managed to cut off Japanese forces in Maingkwan and cut their supply lines in the Hukawng Valley. On 17 May, the Marauders and Chinese forces captured the Myitkyina airfield, the only all-weather airfield in Burma. For their actions, every member of the unit received the Bronze Star.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: On 6 June 1944, during the assault landing on Dog White sector of Omaha Beach as part of the invasion of Normandy, then-Brigadier General Norman Cota (assistant division commander of the 29th Infantry Division) approached Major Max Schneider, CO of the 5th Ranger Battalion and asked "What outfit is this?", Schneider answered "5th Rangers, Sir!" To this, Cota replied "Well, goddamnit, if you're Rangers, lead the way!" From this, the Ranger motto—"Rangers lead the way!"—was born.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: At the outbreak of the Korean War, a unique Ranger unit was formed. Led by Second Lieutenant Ralph Puckett, the Eighth Army Ranger Company was created in August 1950. It served as the role model for the rest of the soon to be formed Ranger units. Instead of being organized into self-contained battalions, the Ranger units of the Korean and Vietnam eras were organized into companies and then attached to larger units, to serve as organic special operations units.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In total, sixteen additional Ranger companies were formed in the next seven months: Eighth Army Raider Company and First through Fifteenth Ranger Company. The Army Chief of Staff assigned the Ranger training program at Fort Benning to Colonel John Gibson Van Houten. The program eventually split to include a training program located in Korea. 3rd Ranger Company and the 7th Ranger Company were tasked to train new Rangers.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The next four Ranger companies were formed 28 October 1950. Soldiers from the 505th Airborne Regiment and the 82nd Airborne's 80th Anti-aircraft Artillery Battalion volunteered and, after initially being designated the 4th Ranger Company, became the 2nd Ranger Company—the only all-black Ranger unit in United States history. After the four companies had begun their training, they were joined by the 5th–8th Ranger companies on 20 November 1950.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: During the course of the war, the Rangers patrolled and probed, scouted and destroyed, attacked and ambushed the Communist Chinese and North Korean enemy. The 1st Rangers destroyed the 12th North Korean Division headquarters in a daring night raid. The 2nd and 4th Rangers made a combat airborne assault near Munsan where Life Magazine reported that Allied troops were now patrolling north of the 38th Parallel. Crucially, the 2nd Rangers plugged the gap made by the retreating Allied forces, the 5th Ranger Company helped stop the Chinese 5th Phase Offensive. As in World War II, after the Korean War, the Rangers were disbanded.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) and Long Range Patrol companies (commonly known as "Lurps") were formed by the U.S. Army in the early 1960s in West Germany to provide small, heavily armed reconnaissance teams to patrol deep in enemy-held territory in case of war with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In Vietnam LRRP platoons and companies were attached to every brigade and division where they perfected the art of long-range patrolling. Since satellite communications were a thing of the future, one of the most daring long-range penetration operations of the Vietnam War was launched on 19 April 1968, by members of the 1st Air Cavalry Division's, Company E, 52nd Infantry (LRP), (redesignated Co. H, Ranger), against the NVA when they seized "Signal Hill" the name attributed to the peak of Dong Re Lao Mountain, a densely forested mountain, midway in A Shau Valley, so the 1st and 3rd Brigades, slugging it out hidden deep behind the towering wall of mountains, could communicate with Camp Evans near the coast or with approaching aircraft.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: On 1 January 1969, under the new U.S. Army Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS), these units were redesignated "Ranger" in South Vietnam within the 75th Infantry Regiment (Ranger) and all replacement personnel were mandatory airborne qualified. Fifteen companies of Rangers were raised from LRRP units, which had been performing missions in Europe since the early 1960s and in Vietnam since 1966. The genealogy of this new Regiment was linked to Merrill's Marauders. The Rangers were organized as independent companies: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O and P, with one notable exception, since 1816, U.S. Army units have not included a Juliet or "J" company, (the reason for this is because the letter 'J' looked too similar to the letter 'I' in Old English script). Companies A and B were respectively assigned to V Corps at Fort Hood, Texas, and VII Corps at Fort Lewis, Washington.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In addition to scouting and reconnoitering roles for their parent formations, Ranger units provided terrain-assessment and tactical or special security missions; undertook recovery operations to locate and retrieve prisoners of war; captured enemy soldiers for interrogation and intelligence-gathering purposes; tapped North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong wire communications lines in their established base areas along the Ho Chi Minh trail; and mined enemy trails as well as motor-vehicle transport routes. To provide tactical skills and patrol expertise all LRRP/Ranger team leaders and most assistant team leaders were graduates of the 5th Special Forces Group Recondo School at Nha Trang Vietnam.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: After the Vietnam War, division and brigade commanders determined that the U.S. Army needed an elite, rapidly deployable light infantry, so on 31 January 1974 General Creighton Abrams asked General Kenneth C. Leuer to activate, organize, train and command the first battalion sized Ranger unit since World War II. Initially, the 1st Ranger Battalion was constituted; because of its success, eight months later, 1 October 1974, the 2nd Ranger Battalion was constituted, and in 1984 the 3rd Ranger Battalion and their regimental headquarters were created. In 1986, the 75th Ranger Regiment was formed and their military lineage formally authorized. The 75th Ranger Regiment, comprising three battalions, is the premier light-infantry of the U.S. Army, a combination of special operations and elite airborne light infantry. The regiment is a flexible, highly trained and rapid light infantry unit specialized to be employed against any special operations targets. All Rangers—whether they are in the 75th Ranger Regiment, or Ranger School, or both—are taught to live by the Ranger Creed. Primary tasks include: direct action, national and international emergency crisis response, airfield seizure, airborne & air assault operations, special reconnaissance, intelligence & counter intelligence, combat search and rescue, personnel recovery & hostage rescue, joint special operations, and counter terrorism.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The 4th, 5th, and 6th Ranger Battalions were re-activated as the Ranger Training Brigade, the cadre of instructors of the contemporary Ranger School; moreover, because they are parts of a TRADOC school, the 4th, 5th, and 6th battalions are not a part of the 75th Ranger Regiment.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The Rangers have participated in numerous operations throughout modern history. In 1980, the Rangers were involved with Operation Eagle Claw, the 1980 second rescue attempt of American hostages in Tehran, Iran. In 1983, the 1st and 2nd Ranger Battalions conducted Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada. All three Ranger battalions, with a headquarters element, participated in the U.S. invasion of Panama (Operation Just Cause) in 1989. In 1991 Bravo Company, the first platoon and Anti-Tank section from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion was deployed in the Persian Gulf War (Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield). Bravo Company, 3rd Ranger Battalion was the base unit of "Task Force Ranger" in Operation Gothic Serpent, in Somalia in 1993, concurrent with Operation Restore Hope. In 1994, soldiers from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Ranger Battalions deployed to Haiti (before the operation's cancellation. The force was recalled from the Haitian coast.). The 3rd Ranger Battalion supported the initial war effort in Afghanistan, in 2001. The Ranger Regiment has been involved in multiple deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom since 2003.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In response to the 11 September terrorist strikes, the United States launched the War on Terror with the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. Special operations units such as the Rangers, along with some CIA officers and Navy SEALs were the first U.S. forces on Afghan soil during Operation Enduring Freedom. This was the first large Ranger operation since the Battle of Mogadishu. The Rangers met with success during the invasion and, along with the other U.S. Special Operations forces, played an integral part in overthrowing the Taliban government. They also participated in the biggest firefight of Operation Anaconda in 2002 at Takur Ghar.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq, the Rangers were among those sent in. During the beginning of the war, they faced some of Iraq's elite Republican Guard units. Rangers were also involved in the rescue of American prisoner of war POW Private First Class Jessica Lynch. The 75th Ranger Regiment has been one of the few units to have members continuously deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Ranger training began in September 1950 at Fort Benning, Georgia "with the formation and training of 17 Airborne Companies by the Ranger Training Command". The first class graduated from Ranger training in November 1950." The United States Army's Infantry School officially established the Ranger Department in December 1951. Under the Ranger Department, the first Ranger School Class was conducted in January–March 1952, with a graduation date of 1March 1952. Its duration was 59 days. At the time, Ranger training was voluntary.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In 1966, a panel headed by General Ralph E. Haines, Jr. recommended making Ranger training mandatory for all Regular Army officers upon commissioning. "On 16 August 1966, the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Harold K. Johnson, directed it so." This policy was implemented in July 1967. It was rescinded on 21 June 1972 by General William Westmoreland. Once again, Ranger training was voluntary. In August 1987, the Ranger Department was split from the Infantry School and the Ranger Training Brigade was established, commanded by Brigadier General (R) James Emory Mace.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The Ranger Companies that made up the Ranger Department became the current training units—the 4th, 5th and 6th Ranger Training Battalions. These units conduct the United States Army's Ranger School at various locations at Fort Benning, Georgia, Camp Frank Merrill, near Dahlonega, Georgia, and Camp James Rudder at Eglin Air Force Base's Auxiliary Field No. 6/Biancur Field, in northwest Florida. As of 2011, the school is 61 days in duration.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In August 2015, two women graduated from Ranger School; they were the "first females to successfully complete the notoriously gruelling program".


title: United States Army Rangers

text: Organizations both use and define the term "Ranger" in different ways. For example, the annual Best Ranger Competition, hosted by the Ranger Training Brigade, the title "Best Ranger" can be won by any Ranger qualified entrants from any unit in the U.S. military. For an individual to be inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Association's "Ranger Hall of Fame" they "must have served in a Ranger unit in combat or be a successful graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger School." The Ranger Association further clarifies the type of unit: "A Ranger unit is defined as those Army units recognized in Ranger lineage or history." Acceptance into the U.S. Army Ranger Association is limited to "Rangers that have earned the U.S. Army Ranger tab, WWII Rangers, Korean War Rangers, Vietnam War Rangers, all Rangers that participated in Operations Urgent Fury, Just Cause, Desert Storm, Restore Hope, Enduring Freedom, and all Rangers who have served honorably for at least one year in a recognized Ranger unit."


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Honor was established in 1952. It is hosted at the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Georgia, which also hosts the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School Hall of Honor.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The Ranger of Hall of Fame features a digital kiosk with over 200 biographies and portraits of inductees.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: The 75th Ranger Regiment has been credited with numerous campaigns from World War II onwards. In World War II, they participated in 16 major campaigns, spearheading the campaigns in French Morocco, Sicily, Naples-Foggia, Anzio and Leyte. During the Vietnam War, they received campaign participation streamers for every campaign in the war.


title: United States Army Rangers

text: In modern times, the regiment received streamers with arrowheads (denoting conflicts they spearheaded) for Grenada and Panama.