text: The student-run newspaper "The Daily Tar Heel" is ranked highly by "The Princeton Review", and received the 2004–5 National Pacemaker Award from the Associated Collegiate Press. Founded in 1977, WXYC 89.3 FM is UNC-Chapel Hill's student radio station that broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Programming is left up to student DJs. WXYC typically plays little heard music from a wide range of genres and eras. On November 7, 1994, WXYC became the first radio station in the world to broadcast its signal over the internet. A student-run television station, STV, airs on the campus cable and throughout the Chapel Hill Spectrum system. Founded in 1948 as successor to the "Carolina Magazine", the "Carolina Quarterly", edited by graduate students, has published the works of numerous authors, including Wendell Berry, Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo, Annie Dillard, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Edgar Wideman. Works appearing in the "Quarterly" have been anthologized in "Best American Short Stories" and "New Stories from the South" and have won the Pushcart and O. Henry Prizes.


title: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

text: The "Clef Hangers" (also known as the "Clefs") are the university's oldest a cappella group, founded by Barry Saunders in 1977. The group has since won several Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARAs), including Best Soloist in the song "Easy", featured on the 2003 album "Breeze". They have won two more CARAs for Best Male Collegiate Songs for "My Love on Time Out" (2008), and for "Ain't Nothing Wrong on Twist" (2009). Members have included Brendan James, who graduated in 2002, and Anoop Desai, who graduated in 2008. Since the spring of 2002, the "Clef Hangers" have sung each year at Commencement. They hold fall and spring concerts, sometimes featuring special guests.


text: The Residence Hall Association, the school's third-largest student-run organization, is dedicated to enhancing the experience of students living in residence halls. This includes putting on social, educational, and philanthropic programs for residents; recognizing outstanding residents and members; and helping residents develop into successful leaders. The organization is run by 8 student executive officers; 16 student governors that represent each residence hall community; and numerous community government members. RHA is the campus organization of NACURH, the largest student organization in the world. In 2010 the organization won the national RHA Building Block Award, which is awarded to the school with the most improved RHA organization.


text: The athletic teams at the university are supported by The Marching Tar Heels, the university's marching band. The entire 275-member volunteer band is present at every home football game, and smaller pep bands play at all home basketball games. Each member of the band is also required to play in at least one of five pep bands that play at athletic events of the 26 other sports.


text: UNC-Chapel Hill has a regional theater company in residence, the Playmakers Repertory Company, and hosts regular dance, drama, and music performances on campus. The school has an outdoor stone amphitheatre known as Forest Theatre used for weddings and drama productions. Forest Theatre is dedicated to Professor Frederick Koch, the founder of the Carolina Playmakers and the father American folk drama.


text: Many fraternities and sororities on campus belong to the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), Interfraternity Council (IFC), Greek Alliance Council, and National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC). As of spring 2010, eighteen percent of undergraduates were Greek (1146 men and 1693 women out of 17,160 total). The total number of community service hours completed for the 2010 spring semester by fraternities and sororities was 51,819 hours (average of 31 hours/person). UNC-Chapel Hill also offers professional and service fraternities that do not have houses but are still recognized by the school. Some of the campus honor societies include: the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Order of the Grail-Valkyries, the Order of the Old Well, the Order of the Bell Tower, and the Frank Porter Graham Honor Society.


text: Student Government at Carolina is composed of an executive branch headed by the student body president, two legislative branches representing Undergraduate and Graduate Students, and a judicial branch which includes the Honor Court and the Student Supreme Court established by the Supreme Court Act of 1968. This model was adopted after a constitutional referendum in 2016 which saw the single Student Government, broken into two constituencies: Undergraduate Student and Graduate and Professional Students. After surviving a challenge in the Student Supreme Court, the referendum vote was allowed to go ahead, and the present constitution was placed into effect in 2017. Each constituency has its own governing bodies, and there are governing bodies characterized as "joint" which may make laws and regulations pertaining to students of either constituency. The Joint Governing bodies are the office of the Student Body President, the Joint Governance Council, and the Student Supreme Court.


text: In 1974, the Judicial Reform Committee created the "Instrument of Student Judicial Governance", which outlined the current Honor Code and its means for enforcement. The creation of the "Instrument" and the Judicial Reform Committee was preceded by a list of "Demands by the Black Student Movement" (BSM) which stated that "[e]ither Black students have full jurisdiction over all offenses committed by Black students or duly elected Black Students from BSM who would represent our interests be on the present Judiciary Courts." Most academic and conduct violations are handled by a single, student-run Honor System. Prior to that time, the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, along with other campus organizations such as the Men's Council, Women's Council, and Student Council supported student concerns.


text: UNC Chapel Hill also provides clubs and activities for first-generation college students: CSTEP - Carolina Student Transfer Excellence Program, Carolina First, First Generation College Student Program, etc.


text: Lenoir Dining Hall was completed in 1939 using funds from the New Deal Public Works Administration, and opened for service to students when they returned from Christmas holidays in January 1940. The building was named for General William Lenoir, the first chairman of the Board of Trustees of the university in 1790. Since its inception, Lenoir Dining Hall has remained the flagship of Carolina Dining Services and the center of dining on campus. It has been renovated twice, in 1984 and 2011, to improve seating and ease mealtime rushes.


text: Chase Hall was originally built in 1965 to offer South Campus dining options and honor former UNC President Harry Woodburn Chase, who served from 1919 to 1930. In 2005, the building was torn down to make way for the Student and Academic Services buildings, and was rebuilt north of the original location as the Rams Head Center (with the inner dining hall officially titled Chase Dining Hall). Due to students nicknaming the dining hall Rams Head, the university officially reinstated Chase Hall as the building name in March 2017. It includes the Chase Dining Hall, the Rams Head Market, and a conference room called the "Blue Zone". Chase Dining Hall seats 1,300 people and has a capacity for serving 10,000 meals per day. It continues to offer more food service options to the students living on south campus, and features extended hours including the 9 pm – 12 am period referred to as "Late Night".


text: On campus, the Department of Housing and Residential Education manages thirty-two residence halls, grouped into thirteen communities. These communities range from Olde Campus Upper Quad Community which includes Old East Residence Hall, the oldest building of the university, to modern communities such as Manning West, completed in 2002. First year students are required to live in one of the eight "First Year Experience" residence halls, most of which are located on South Campus. In addition to residence halls, the university oversees an additional eight apartment complexes organized into three communities, Ram Village, Odum Village, and Baity Hill Student Family Housing. Along with themed housing focusing on foreign languages and substance-free living, there are also "living-learning communities" which have been formed for specific social, gender-related, or academic needs. An example is UNITAS, sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, where residents are assigned roommates on the basis of cultural or racial differences rather than similarities. Three apartment complexes offer housing for families, graduate students, and some upperclassmen. Along with the rest of campus, all residence halls, apartments, and their surrounding grounds are smoke-free. , 46% of all undergraduates live in university-provided housing.


text: With over 300,000 living former students, North Carolina has one of the largest and most active alumni groups in America. Many Tar Heels have attained local, national, and international prominence. James K. Polk served as President of the United States for a single term, William R. King was the thirteenth Vice President of the United States. North Carolina has produced many United States Senators including Paul Wellstone and Thomas Lanier Clingman, along with multiple House Representatives such as Virginia Foxx and Ike Franklin Andrews. Algenon L. Marbley and Thomas Settle have received positions of federal judgeship. Former Secretary of War and Secretary of the Army Kenneth Claiborne Royall and the fifth White House Press Secretary Jonathan W. Daniels were graduates of North Carolina. North Carolina has also produced 38 state governors, including Terry Sanford, Jim Hunt, and Roy Cooper, the current Governor of North Carolina. Peaches Golding was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II as High Sheriff of the City and County of Bristol 2010–2011, the first Black female High Sheriff and second only black High Sheriff in over 1,000 years. Stormie Forte was appointed as the first Black woman and openly LGBTQ female member of the Raleigh City Council. Michael R. Nelson became the first openly gay mayor in North Carolina when he was elected as mayor of Carrboro in 1995. Carolyn Hunt served as the Second Lady of North Carolina and twice served as the First Lady of North Carolina. Margaret Rose Sanford served as First Lady of North Carolina. Betty Ray McCain served as the North Carolina Secretary of Culture and was the first woman to chair the North Carolina Democratic Party. James E. Webb, the 2nd Administrator of NASA and an architect of the Apollo program during the Kennedy administration, was a Tar Heel. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the successor of Hubble launched in December 2021, was named in honor of Webb.


text: Tar Heels have also made a mark on pop culture. Andy Griffith and John Forsythe became successful actors. Stuart Scott, Woody Durham, and Mick Mixon have become sportscasters. Civil War historian and writer Shelby Foote, sportswriter Peter Gammons, Pulitzer Prize winner Lenoir Chambers and comedian Lewis Black all graduated from North Carolina. Other notable writers who have attended UNC-Chapel Hill include Thomas Wolfe, who has a memorial on campus; National Book Award winners Walker Percy, Hayden Carruth, and Charles Frazier; Dos Passos Prize winner Russell Banks; National Book Critics Circle Award winner Ben Fountain; Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet; "New Yorker" columnist Joseph Mitchell; "National Geographic" writer John Patric; Armistead Maupin; and the notable poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Bollingen Prize winner Edgar Bowers.Television journalist Charles Kuralt, honored with three Peabody Awards, is a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, political cartoonist Jeff MacNelly graduated from Carolina. Caleb Bradham, the inventor of the popular soft drink Pepsi-Cola, was a member of the Philanthropic Society and the class of 1890. Actor Ken Jeong attended UNC's School of Medicine, joining the small group of performers and personalities who also possess doctorates. Brooke Baldwin anchors CNN's Newsroom and graduated from UNC in 2001. Pamela Brown serves as CNN's Senior White House Correspondent. Pulitzer Prize winner and creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones achieved her master's degree from UNC in 2003.


text: Tar Heels have made their mark on the basketball court with Southern Methodist University head coach Larry Brown, title winning coach Roy Williams, Charlotte Hornets general manager Mitch Kupchak, college player of the year award winners George Glamack, Lennie Rosenbluth, Antawn Jamison, and Tyler Hansbrough, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees Michael Jordan,James Worthy, Billy Cunningham, and Robert McAdoo, great defender Bobby Jones, and NBA All-Star Vince Carter. Other notable Tar Heels include football players Lawrence Taylor, Julius Peppers, Harris Barton, Hakeem Nicks, Mitchell Trubisky, and Dré Bly, soccer stars Mia Hamm, Ashlyn Harris, Heather O'Reilly, Meghan Klingenberg, Whitney Engen, Allie Long, Lori Chalupny, Crystal Dunn and Tobin Heath, baseball standouts Dustin Ackley, Matt Harvey, Andrew Miller, Kyle Seager, and B.J. Surhoff, and Olympians April Heinrichs and Vikas Gowda. Vic Seixas is a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and won 15 Majors.


text: Many Tar Heels have become business leaders. The leaders include Jason Kilar, former CEO of Hulu; Howard R. Levine, chairman of the board and CEO of Family Dollar; Paul Kolton, chairman of the American Stock Exchange; Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management; Bill Ruger, founder of Sturm, Ruger; Warren Grice Elliott, former president of Atlantic Coast Line Railroad; Allen B. Morgan, Jr., founder and former CEO of Morgan Keegan & Company; Ken Thompson, former chairman and CEO of Wachovia; Hugh McColl, former CEO of Bank of America; Sallie Krawcheck, former CFO of Citigroup ,William Johnson, the current president and CEO of Progress Energy, John A. Allison IV, former CEO of BB&T, Marvin Sands, founder and CEO of Constellation Brands, Ritch Allison, CEO of Dominos Pizza, Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco, Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity, and Michelle Buck, CEO of The Hershey Company, William H. Rogers Jr., CEO of SunTrust Banks, William B. Harrison Jr., former CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and Peter Grauer, Chairman of Bloomberg.


title: Wood

text: Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin that resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, or it is defined more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere such as in the roots of trees or shrubs. In a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots. Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or woodchips or fiber.


title: Wood

text: Wood has been used for thousands of years for fuel, as a construction material, for making tools and weapons, furniture and paper. More recently it emerged as a feedstock for the production of purified cellulose and its derivatives, such as cellophane and cellulose acetate.


title: Wood

text: As of 2005, the growing stock of forests worldwide was about 434 billion cubic meters, 47% of which was commercial. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy. In 1991 approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction.


title: Wood

text: A 2011 discovery in the Canadian province of New Brunswick yielded the earliest known plants to have grown wood, approximately 395 to 400 million years ago.


title: Wood

text: Wood can be dated by carbon dating and in some species by dendrochronology to determine when a wooden object was created.


title: Wood

text: People have used wood for thousands of years for many purposes, including as a fuel or as a construction material for making houses, tools, weapons, furniture, packaging, artworks, and paper. Known constructions using wood date back ten thousand years. Buildings like the European Neolithic long house were made primarily of wood.


title: Wood

text: The year-to-year variation in tree-ring widths and isotopic abundances gives clues to the prevailing climate at the time a tree was cut.


title: Wood

text: Wood, in the strict sense, is yielded by trees, which increase in diameter by the formation, between the existing wood and the inner bark, of new woody layers which envelop the entire stem, living branches, and roots. This process is known as secondary growth; it is the result of cell division in the vascular cambium, a lateral meristem, and subsequent expansion of the new cells. These cells then go on to form thickened secondary cell walls, composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin.


title: Wood

text: Where the differences between the seasons are distinct, e.g. New Zealand, growth can occur in a discrete annual or seasonal pattern, leading to growth rings; these can usually be most clearly seen on the end of a log, but are also visible on the other surfaces. If the distinctiveness between seasons is annual (as is the case in equatorial regions, e.g. Singapore), these growth rings are referred to as annual rings. Where there is little seasonal difference growth rings are likely to be indistinct or absent. If the bark of the tree has been removed in a particular area, the rings will likely be deformed as the plant overgrows the scar.


title: Wood

text: If there are differences within a growth ring, then the part of a growth ring nearest the center of the tree, and formed early in the growing season when growth is rapid, is usually composed of wider elements. It is usually lighter in color than that near the outer portion of the ring, and is known as earlywood or springwood. The outer portion formed later in the season is then known as the latewood or summerwood. However, there are major differences, depending on the kind of wood (see below).


title: Wood

text: If a tree grows all its life in the open and the conditions of soil and site remain unchanged, it will make its most rapid growth in youth, and gradually decline. The annual rings of growth are for many years quite wide, but later they become narrower and narrower. Since each succeeding ring is laid down on the outside of the wood previously formed, it follows that unless a tree materially increases its production of wood from year to year, the rings must necessarily become thinner as the trunk gets wider. As a tree reaches maturity its crown becomes more open and the annual wood production is lessened, thereby reducing still more the width of the growth rings. In the case of forest-grown trees so much depends upon the competition of the trees in their struggle for light and nourishment that periods of rapid and slow growth may alternate. Some trees, such as southern oaks, maintain the same width of ring for hundreds of years. Upon the whole, however, as a tree gets larger in diameter the width of the growth rings decreases.


title: Wood

text: As a tree grows, lower branches often die, and their bases may become overgrown and enclosed by subsequent layers of trunk wood, forming a type of imperfection known as a knot. The dead branch may not be attached to the trunk wood except at its base, and can drop out after the tree has been sawn into boards. Knots affect the technical properties of the wood, usually reducing tension strength, but may be exploited for visual effect. In a longitudinally sawn plank, a knot will appear as a roughly circular "solid" (usually darker) piece of wood around which the grain of the rest of the wood "flows" (parts and rejoins). Within a knot, the direction of the wood (grain direction) is up to 90 degrees different from the grain direction of the regular wood.


title: Wood

text: In the tree a knot is either the base of a side branch or a dormant bud. A knot (when the base of a side branch) is conical in shape (hence the roughly circular cross-section) with the inner tip at the point in stem diameter at which the plant's vascular cambium was located when the branch formed as a bud.


title: Wood

text: In grading lumber and structural timber, knots are classified according to their form, size, soundness, and the firmness with which they are held in place. This firmness is affected by, among other factors, the length of time for which the branch was dead while the attaching stem continued to grow.


title: Wood

text: Knots do not necessarily influence the stiffness of structural timber, this will depend on the size and location. Stiffness and elastic strength are more dependent upon the sound wood than upon localized defects. The breaking strength is very susceptible to defects. Sound knots do not weaken wood when subject to compression parallel to the grain.


title: Wood

text: In some decorative applications, wood with knots may be desirable to add visual interest. In applications where wood is painted, such as skirting boards, fascia boards, door frames and furniture, resins present in the timber may continue to 'bleed' through to the surface of a knot for months or even years after manufacture and show as a yellow or brownish stain. A knot primer paint or solution (knotting), correctly applied during preparation, may do much to reduce this problem but it is difficult to control completely, especially when using mass-produced kiln-dried timber stocks.


title: Wood

text: Heartwood (or duramen) is wood that as a result of a naturally occurring chemical transformation has become more resistant to decay. Heartwood formation is a genetically programmed process that occurs spontaneously. Some uncertainty exists as to whether the wood dies during heartwood formation, as it can still chemically react to decay organisms, but only once.


title: Wood

text: The term "heartwood" derives solely from its position and not from any vital importance to the tree. This is evidenced by the fact that a tree can thrive with its heart completely decayed. Some species begin to form heartwood very early in life, so having only a thin layer of live sapwood, while in others the change comes slowly. Thin sapwood is characteristic of such species as chestnut, black locust, mulberry, osage-orange, and sassafras, while in maple, ash, hickory, hackberry, beech, and pine, thick sapwood is the rule. Some others never form heartwood.


title: Wood

text: Heartwood is often visually distinct from the living sapwood, and can be distinguished in a cross-section where the boundary will tend to follow the growth rings. For example, it is sometimes much darker. However, other processes such as decay or insect invasion can also discolor wood, even in woody plants that do not form heartwood, which may lead to confusion.


title: Wood

text: Sapwood (or alburnum) is the younger, outermost wood; in the growing tree it is living wood, and its principal functions are to conduct water from the roots to the leaves and to store up and give back according to the season the reserves prepared in the leaves. However, by the time they become competent to conduct water, all xylem tracheids and vessels have lost their cytoplasm and the cells are therefore functionally dead. All wood in a tree is first formed as sapwood. The more leaves a tree bears and the more vigorous its growth, the larger the volume of sapwood required. Hence trees making rapid growth in the open have thicker sapwood for their size than trees of the same species growing in dense forests. Sometimes trees (of species that do form heartwood) grown in the open may become of considerable size, or more in diameter, before any heartwood begins to form, for example, in second-growth hickory, or open-grown pines.


title: Wood

text: No definite relation exists between the annual rings of growth and the amount of sapwood. Within the same species the cross-sectional area of the sapwood is very roughly proportional to the size of the crown of the tree. If the rings are narrow, more of them are required than where they are wide. As the tree gets larger, the sapwood must necessarily become thinner or increase materially in volume. Sapwood is relatively thicker in the upper portion of the trunk of a tree than near the base, because the age and the diameter of the upper sections are less.


title: Wood

text: When a tree is very young it is covered with limbs almost, if not entirely, to the ground, but as it grows older some or all of them will eventually die and are either broken off or fall off. Subsequent growth of wood may completely conceal the stubs which will however remain as knots. No matter how smooth and clear a log is on the outside, it is more or less knotty near the middle. Consequently, the sapwood of an old tree, and particularly of a forest-grown tree, will be freer from knots than the inner heartwood. Since in most uses of wood, knots are defects that weaken the timber and interfere with its ease of working and other properties, it follows that a given piece of sapwood, because of its position in the tree, may well be stronger than a piece of heartwood from the same tree.


title: Wood

text: Different pieces of wood cut from a large tree may differ decidedly, particularly if the tree is big and mature. In some trees, the wood laid on late in the life of a tree is softer, lighter, weaker, and more even-textured than that produced earlier, but in other trees, the reverse applies. This may or may not correspond to heartwood and sapwood. In a large log the sapwood, because of the time in the life of the tree when it was grown, may be inferior in hardness, strength, and toughness to equally sound heartwood from the same log. In a smaller tree, the reverse may be true.


title: Wood

text: In species which show a distinct difference between heartwood and sapwood the natural color of heartwood is usually darker than that of the sapwood, and very frequently the contrast is conspicuous (see section of yew log above). This is produced by deposits in the heartwood of chemical substances, so that a dramatic color variation does not imply a significant difference in the mechanical properties of heartwood and sapwood, although there may be a marked biochemical difference between the two.


title: Wood

text: Some experiments on very resinous longleaf pine specimens indicate an increase in strength, due to the resin which increases the strength when dry. Such resin-saturated heartwood is called "fat lighter". Structures built of fat lighter are almost impervious to rot and termites; however they are very flammable. Stumps of old longleaf pines are often dug, split into small pieces and sold as kindling for fires. Stumps thus dug may actually remain a century or more since being cut. Spruce impregnated with crude resin and dried is also greatly increased in strength thereby.


title: Wood

text: Since the latewood of a growth ring is usually darker in color than the earlywood, this fact may be used in visually judging the density, and therefore the hardness and strength of the material. This is particularly the case with coniferous woods. In ring-porous woods the vessels of the early wood often appear on a finished surface as darker than the denser latewood, though on cross sections of heartwood the reverse is commonly true. Otherwise the color of wood is no indication of strength.


title: Wood

text: Abnormal discoloration of wood often denotes a diseased condition, indicating unsoundness. The black check in western hemlock is the result of insect attacks. The reddish-brown streaks so common in hickory and certain other woods are mostly the result of injury by birds. The discoloration is merely an indication of an injury, and in all probability does not of itself affect the properties of the wood. Certain rot-producing fungi impart to wood characteristic colors which thus become symptomatic of weakness; however an attractive effect known as spalting produced by this process is often considered a desirable characteristic. Ordinary sap-staining is due to fungal growth, but does not necessarily produce a weakening effect.


title: Wood

text: In heartwood it occurs only in the first and last forms. Wood that is thoroughly air-dried retains 8–16% of the water in the cell walls, and none, or practically none, in the other forms. Even oven-dried wood retains a small percentage of moisture, but for all except chemical purposes, may be considered absolutely dry.


title: Wood

text: The general effect of the water content upon the wood substance is to render it softer and more pliable. A similar effect occurs in the softening action of water on rawhide, paper, or cloth. Within certain limits, the greater the water content, the greater its softening effect.


title: Wood

text: Drying produces a decided increase in the strength of wood, particularly in small specimens. An extreme example is the case of a completely dry spruce block 5 cm in section, which will sustain a permanent load four times as great as a green (undried) block of the same size will.


title: Wood

text: The greatest strength increase due to drying is in the ultimate crushing strength, and strength at elastic limit in endwise compression; these are followed by the modulus of rupture, and stress at elastic limit in cross-bending, while the modulus of elasticity is least affected.


title: Wood

text: Wood is a heterogeneous, hygroscopic, cellular and anisotropic material. It consists of cells, and the cell walls are composed of micro-fibrils of cellulose (40–50%) and hemicellulose (15–25%) impregnated with lignin (15–30%).


title: Wood

text: In coniferous or softwood species the wood cells are mostly of one kind, tracheids, and as a result the material is much more uniform in structure than that of most hardwoods. There are no vessels ("pores") in coniferous wood such as one sees so prominently in oak and ash, for example.


title: Wood

text: The structure of hardwoods is more complex. The water conducting capability is mostly taken care of by vessels: in some cases (oak, chestnut, ash) these are quite large and distinct, in others (buckeye, poplar, willow) too small to be seen without a hand lens. In discussing such woods it is customary to divide them into two large classes, "ring-porous" and "diffuse-porous".


title: Wood

text: In ring-porous species, such as ash, black locust, catalpa, chestnut, elm, hickory, mulberry, and oak, the larger vessels or pores (as cross sections of vessels are called) are localized in the part of the growth ring formed in spring, thus forming a region of more or less open and porous tissue. The rest of the ring, produced in summer, is made up of smaller vessels and a much greater proportion of wood fibers. These fibers are the elements which give strength and toughness to wood, while the vessels are a source of weakness.


title: Wood

text: In diffuse-porous woods the pores are evenly sized so that the water conducting capability is scattered throughout the growth ring instead of being collected in a band or row. Examples of this kind of wood are alder, basswood, birch, buckeye, maple, willow, and the "Populus" species such as aspen, cottonwood and poplar. Some species, such as walnut and cherry, are on the border between the two classes, forming an intermediate group.


title: Wood

text: In temperate softwoods, there often is a marked difference between latewood and earlywood. The latewood will be denser than that formed early in the season. When examined under a microscope, the cells of dense latewood are seen to be very thick-walled and with very small cell cavities, while those formed first in the season have thin walls and large cell cavities. The strength is in the walls, not the cavities. Hence the greater the proportion of latewood, the greater the density and strength. In choosing a piece of pine where strength or stiffness is the important consideration, the principal thing to observe is the comparative amounts of earlywood and latewood. The width of ring is not nearly so important as the proportion and nature of the latewood in the ring.


title: Wood

text: If a heavy piece of pine is compared with a lightweight piece it will be seen at once that the heavier one contains a larger proportion of latewood than the other, and is therefore showing more clearly demarcated growth rings. In white pines there is not much contrast between the different parts of the ring, and as a result the wood is very uniform in texture and is easy to work. In hard pines, on the other hand, the latewood is very dense and is deep-colored, presenting a very decided contrast to the soft, straw-colored earlywood.


title: Wood

text: It is not only the proportion of latewood, but also its quality, that counts. In specimens that show a very large proportion of latewood it may be noticeably more porous and weigh considerably less than the latewood in pieces that contain less latewood. One can judge comparative density, and therefore to some extent strength, by visual inspection.


title: Wood

text: No satisfactory explanation can as yet be given for the exact mechanisms determining the formation of earlywood and latewood. Several factors may be involved. In conifers, at least, rate of growth alone does not determine the proportion of the two portions of the ring, for in some cases the wood of slow growth is very hard and heavy, while in others the opposite is true. The quality of the site where the tree grows undoubtedly affects the character of the wood formed, though it is not possible to formulate a rule governing it. In general, however, it may be said that where strength or ease of working is essential, woods of moderate to slow growth should be chosen.


title: Wood

text: In ring-porous woods, each season's growth is always well defined, because the large pores formed early in the season abut on the denser tissue of the year before.


title: Wood

text: In the case of the ring-porous hardwoods, there seems to exist a pretty definite relation between the rate of growth of timber and its properties. This may be briefly summed up in the general statement that the more rapid the growth or the wider the rings of growth, the heavier, harder, stronger, and stiffer the wood. This, it must be remembered, applies only to ring-porous woods such as oak, ash, hickory, and others of the same group, and is, of course, subject to some exceptions and limitations.


title: Wood

text: In ring-porous woods of good growth, it is usually the latewood in which the thick-walled, strength-giving fibers are most abundant. As the breadth of ring diminishes, this latewood is reduced so that very slow growth produces comparatively light, porous wood composed of thin-walled vessels and wood parenchyma. In good oak, these large vessels of the earlywood occupy from 6 to 10 percent of the volume of the log, while in inferior material they may make up 25% or more. The latewood of good oak is dark colored and firm, and consists mostly of thick-walled fibers which form one-half or more of the wood. In inferior oak, this latewood is much reduced both in quantity and quality. Such variation is very largely the result of rate of growth.


title: Wood

text: Wide-ringed wood is often called "second-growth", because the growth of the young timber in open stands after the old trees have been removed is more rapid than in trees in a closed forest, and in the manufacture of articles where strength is an important consideration such "second-growth" hardwood material is preferred. This is particularly the case in the choice of hickory for handles and spokes. Here not only strength, but toughness and resilience are important.


title: Wood

text: The effect of rate of growth on the qualities of chestnut wood is summarized by the same authority as follows:


title: Wood

text: In the diffuse-porous woods, the demarcation between rings is not always so clear and in some cases is almost (if not entirely) invisible to the unaided eye. Conversely, when there is a clear demarcation there may not be a noticeable difference in structure within the growth ring.


title: Wood

text: In diffuse-porous woods, as has been stated, the vessels or pores are even-sized, so that the water conducting capability is scattered throughout the ring instead of collected in the earlywood. The effect of rate of growth is, therefore, not the same as in the ring-porous woods, approaching more nearly the conditions in the conifers. In general, it may be stated that such woods of medium growth afford stronger material than when very rapidly or very slowly grown. In many uses of wood, total strength is not the main consideration. If ease of working is prized, wood should be chosen with regard to its uniformity of texture and straightness of grain, which will in most cases occur when there is little contrast between the latewood of one season's growth and the earlywood of the next.


title: Wood

text: Structural material that resembles ordinary, "dicot" or conifer timber in its gross handling characteristics is produced by a number of monocot plants, and these also are colloquially called wood. Of these, bamboo, botanically a member of the grass family, has considerable economic importance, larger culms being widely used as a building and construction material and in the manufacture of engineered flooring, panels and veneer. Another major plant group that produces material that often is called wood are the palms. Of much less importance are plants such as "Pandanus," "Dracaena" and "Cordyline." With all this material, the structure and composition of the processed raw material is quite different from ordinary wood.


title: Wood

text: The single most revealing property of wood as an indicator of wood quality is specific gravity (Timell 1986), as both pulp yield and lumber strength are determined by it. Specific gravity is the ratio of the mass of a substance to the mass of an equal volume of water; density is the ratio of a mass of a quantity of a substance to the volume of that quantity and is expressed in mass per unit substance, e.g., grams per milliliter (g/cm or g/ml). The terms are essentially equivalent as long as the metric system is used. Upon drying, wood shrinks and its density increases. Minimum values are associated with green (water-saturated) wood and are referred to as "basic specific gravity" (Timell 1986).


title: Wood

text: Wood density is determined by multiple growth and physiological factors compounded into “one fairly easily measured wood characteristic” (Elliott 1970).


title: Wood

text: Age, diameter, height, radial (trunk) growth, geographical location, site and growing conditions, silvicultural treatment, and seed source all to some degree influence wood density. Variation is to be expected. Within an individual tree, the variation in wood density is often as great as or even greater than that between different trees (Timell 1986). Variation of specific gravity within the bole of a tree can occur in either the horizontal or vertical direction.


title: Wood

text: The following tables list the mechanical properties of wood and lumber plant species, including bamboo.


title: Wood

text: It is common to classify wood as either softwood or hardwood. The wood from conifers (e.g. pine) is called softwood, and the wood from dicotyledons (usually broad-leaved trees, e.g. oak) is called hardwood. These names are a bit misleading, as hardwoods are not necessarily hard, and softwoods are not necessarily soft. The well-known balsa (a hardwood) is actually softer than any commercial softwood. Conversely, some softwoods (e.g. yew) are harder than many hardwoods.


title: Wood

text: There is a strong relationship between the properties of wood and the properties of the particular tree that yielded it, at least for certain species. For example, in loblolly pine, wind exposure and stem position greatly affect the hardness of wood, as well as compression wood content. The density of wood varies with species. The density of a wood correlates with its strength (mechanical properties). For example, mahogany is a medium-dense hardwood that is excellent for fine furniture crafting, whereas balsa is light, making it useful for model building. One of the densest woods is black ironwood.


title: Wood

text: The chemical composition of wood varies from species to species, but is approximately 50% carbon, 42% oxygen, 6% hydrogen, 1% nitrogen, and 1% other elements (mainly calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, and manganese) by weight. Wood also contains sulfur, chlorine, silicon, phosphorus, and other elements in small quantity.


title: Wood

text: Aside from water, wood has three main components. Cellulose, a crystalline polymer derived from glucose, constitutes about 41–43%. Next in abundance is hemicellulose, which is around 20% in deciduous trees but near 30% in conifers. It is mainly five-carbon sugars that are linked in an irregular manner, in contrast to the cellulose. Lignin is the third component at around 27% in coniferous wood vs. 23% in deciduous trees. Lignin confers the hydrophobic properties reflecting the fact that it is based on aromatic rings. These three components are interwoven, and direct covalent linkages exist between the lignin and the hemicellulose. A major focus of the paper industry is the separation of the lignin from the cellulose, from which paper is made.


title: Wood

text: In chemical terms, the difference between hardwood and softwood is reflected in the composition of the constituent lignin. Hardwood lignin is primarily derived from sinapyl alcohol and coniferyl alcohol. Softwood lignin is mainly derived from coniferyl alcohol.


title: Wood

text: Aside from the structural polymers, i.e. cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin (lignocellulose), wood contains a large variety of non-structural constituents, composed of low molecular weight organic compounds, called "extractives". These compounds are present in the extracellular space and can be extracted from the wood using different neutral solvents, such as acetone. Analogous content is present in the so-called "exudate" produced by trees in response to mechanical damage or after being attacked by insects or fungi. Unlike the structural constituents, the composition of extractives varies over wide ranges and depends on many factors. The amount and composition of extractives differs between tree species, various parts of the same tree, and depends on genetic factors and growth conditions, such as climate and geography. For example, slower growing trees and higher parts of trees have higher content of extractives. Generally, the softwood is richer in extractives than the hardwood. Their concentration increases from the cambium to the pith. Barks and branches also contain extractives. Although extractives represent a small fraction of the wood content, usually less than 10%, they are extraordinarily diverse and thus characterize the chemistry of the wood species. Most extractives are secondary metabolites and some of them serve as precursors to other chemicals. Wood extractives display different activities, some of them are produced in response to wounds, and some of them participate in natural defense against insects and fungi.


title: Wood

text: These compounds contribute to various physical and chemical properties of the wood, such as wood color, fragnance, durability, acoustic properties, hygroscopicity, adhesion, and drying. Considering these impacts, wood extractives also affect the properties of pulp and paper, and importantly cause many problems in paper industry. Some extractives are surface-active substances and unavoidably affect the surface properties of paper, such as water adsorption, friction and strength. Lipophilic extractives often give rise to sticky deposits during kraft pulping and may leave spots on paper. Extractives also account for paper smell, which is important when making food contact materials.


title: Wood

text: Most wood extractives are lipophilic and only a little part is water-soluble. The lipophilic portion of extractives, which is collectively referred as wood resin, contains fats and fatty acids, sterols and steryl esters, terpenes, terpenoids, resin acids, and waxes. The heating of resin, i.e. distillation, vaporizes the volatile terpenes and leaves the solid component – rosin. The concentrated liquid of volatile compounds extracted during steam distillation is called essential oil. Distillation of oleoresin obtained from many pines provides rosin and turpentine.


title: Wood

text: Most extractives can be categorized into three groups: aliphatic compounds, terpenes and phenolic compounds. The latter are more water-soluble and usually are absent in the resin.


title: Wood

text: Wood has a long history of being used as fuel, which continues to this day, mostly in rural areas of the world. Hardwood is preferred over softwood because it creates less smoke and burns longer. Adding a woodstove or fireplace to a home is often felt to add ambiance and warmth.


title: Wood

text: Wood has been an important construction material since humans began building shelters, houses and boats. Nearly all boats were made out of wood until the late 19th century, and wood remains in common use today in boat construction. Elm in particular was used for this purpose as it resisted decay as long as it was kept wet (it also served for water pipe before the advent of more modern plumbing).


title: Wood

text: Wood to be used for construction work is commonly known as "lumber" in North America. Elsewhere, "lumber" usually refers to felled trees, and the word for sawn planks ready for use is "timber". In Medieval Europe oak was the wood of choice for all wood construction, including beams, walls, doors, and floors. Today a wider variety of woods is used: solid wood doors are often made from poplar, small-knotted pine, and Douglas fir.


title: Wood

text: New domestic housing in many parts of the world today is commonly made from timber-framed construction. Engineered wood products are becoming a bigger part of the construction industry. They may be used in both residential and commercial buildings as structural and aesthetic materials.


title: Wood

text: In buildings made of other materials, wood will still be found as a supporting material, especially in roof construction, in interior doors and their frames, and as exterior cladding.


title: Wood

text: Wood is also commonly used as shuttering material to form the mold into which concrete is poured during reinforced concrete construction.


title: Wood

text: A solid wood floor is a floor laid with planks or battens created from a single piece of timber, usually a hardwood. Since wood is hydroscopic (it acquires and loses moisture from the ambient conditions around it) this potential instability effectively limits the length and width of the boards.


title: Wood

text: Solid hardwood flooring is usually cheaper than engineered timbers and damaged areas can be sanded down and refinished repeatedly, the number of times being limited only by the thickness of wood above the tongue.


title: Wood

text: Solid hardwood floors were originally used for structural purposes, being installed perpendicular to the wooden support beams of a building (the joists or bearers) and solid construction timber is still often used for sports floors as well as most traditional wood blocks, mosaics and parquetry.


title: Wood

text: Engineered wood products, glued building products "engineered" for application-specific performance requirements, are often used in construction and industrial applications. Glued engineered wood products are manufactured by bonding together wood strands, veneers, lumber or other forms of wood fiber with glue to form a larger, more efficient composite structural unit.


title: Wood

text: These products include glued laminated timber (glulam), wood structural panels (including plywood, oriented strand board and composite panels), laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and other structural composite lumber (SCL) products, parallel strand lumber, and I-joists. Approximately 100 million cubic meters of wood was consumed for this purpose in 1991. The trends suggest that particle board and fiber board will overtake plywood.


title: Wood

text: Wood unsuitable for construction in its native form may be broken down mechanically (into fibers or chips) or chemically (into cellulose) and used as a raw material for other building materials, such as engineered wood, as well as chipboard, hardboard, and medium-density fiberboard (MDF). Such wood derivatives are widely used: wood fibers are an important component of most paper, and cellulose is used as a component of some synthetic materials. Wood derivatives can be used for kinds of flooring, for example laminate flooring.


title: Wood

text: Wood has always been used extensively for furniture, such as chairs and beds. It is also used for tool handles and cutlery, such as chopsticks, toothpicks, and other utensils, like the wooden spoon and pencil.


title: Wood

text: Further developments include new lignin glue applications, recyclable food packaging, rubber tire replacement applications, anti-bacterial medical agents, and high strength fabrics or composites.


title: Wood

text: As scientists and engineers further learn and develop new techniques to extract various components from wood, or alternatively to modify wood, for example by adding components to wood, new more advanced products will appear on the marketplace. Moisture content electronic monitoring can also enhance next generation wood protection.


title: Wood

text: Wood has long been used as an artistic medium. It has been used to make sculptures and carvings for millennia. Examples include the totem poles carved by North American indigenous people from conifer trunks, often Western Red Cedar ("Thuja plicata").


title: Wood

text: Many types of sports equipment are made of wood, or were constructed of wood in the past. For example, cricket bats are typically made of white willow. The baseball bats which are legal for use in Major League Baseball are frequently made of ash wood or hickory, and in recent years have been constructed from maple even though that wood is somewhat more fragile. National Basketball Association courts have been traditionally made out of parquetry.


title: Wood

text: Many other types of sports and recreation equipment, such as skis, ice hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and archery bows, were commonly made of wood in the past, but have since been replaced with more modern materials such as aluminium, titanium or composite materials such as fiberglass and carbon fiber. One noteworthy example of this trend is the family of golf clubs commonly known as the "woods", the heads of which were traditionally made of persimmon wood in the early days of the game of golf, but are now generally made of metal or (especially in the case of drivers) carbon-fiber composites.


title: Wood

text: Little is known about the bacteria that degrade cellulose. Symbiotic bacteria in "Xylophaga" may play a role in the degradation of sunken wood. "Alphaproteobacteria", "Flavobacteria", "Actinomycetota", "Clostridia", and "Bacteroidota" have been detected in wood submerged for over a year.


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang Wei (, born 7 October 1979) is a Chinese actress. She rose to prominence for her appearance in "Lust, Caution" (2007). She has received various accolades, including a Cannes Film Festival Award, a Golden Horse Film Festival Award and a Baeksang Arts Award, in addition to nomination for a British Academy Film Award.


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. She is the only child of a former stage actress and painter. In an interview, she explained that she often travelled around China and learned to paint, adding that she was influenced by her parents. Tang graduated from a local vocational high school in her hometown in 1996, where her teachers described her as "athletic" and a "good student who always did her homework". She had no plans to become famous; she originally aspired to become an archaeologist or lawyer. Tang made the decision to enter the entertainment industry after doing some modelling in 1997 and played a minor role in the TV series "Chinese Female Football". She graduated from the Central Academy of Drama where she majored in directing.


title: Tang Wei

text: Shortly after her university graduation, Tang met Stan Lai during one of his trips to China. He was impressed by the actress, and was quoted as saying, "The number of stars may not be good actors, a lot of good actors may not be good stars, but Tang Wei was fortunate to have done it." He proceeded to recommend her to several directors and was thus cast in more roles, although she was relatively unknown outside her hometown in China at this time. Nonetheless, Tang starred in a TV series, "Policewoman Swallow" (2004) and a brief university drama, "Che Guevara" (2004). After working with a more diverse group of actresses, she also appeared in TV dramas "Sons and Daughters of the Red Cross" (2004), "Leaving Seafront Street" (2005), "East Meets West" (2005), "Born in the 60s" (2006) and "Silent Tears".


title: Tang Wei

text: In July 2006, Tang was selected from more than 10,000 actresses to appear in Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" (2007). Tang plays the film's main character, Wong Chia-chi, inspired by the story of the executed spy Zheng Pingru. Tang learned both Shanghainese and the related Suzhou dialect for her role. After the film premiered, Tang received wider fame throughout and beyond China. She won the Golden Horse Award for Best New Performer and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award.


title: Tang Wei

text: Despite her success, China's State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) ordered a media ban due to Tang's performance of sexual acts in "Lust, Caution". All print ads and feature content using Tang were removed, and her endorsements were discontinued. She was set to star in Tian Zhuangzhuang's big-budget period film "The Warrior and the Wolf" (2009), but was replaced by Maggie Q. In February 2009, during her absence from the movie industry, she was reported to have briefly attended drama classes at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang made her return to the big screen in "Crossing Hennessy" (2010), a romantic drama by Ivy Ho which revolves around two people who are set up on a blind date by well-meaning relatives, despite the fact that they both have somebody else on their minds. Tang, who plays a simple girl-next-door with a stubborn streak, learned Cantonese for her role. As this was Tang's first film to be shown in China since "Lust, Caution", a March 2010 news article quoted her as saying, "Coming to Hong Kong for this premiere, I can see director Ivy and co-star Andy On again. I've been very happy. Now I'm just excited to see the movie. I will be happy if everyone can see my work."


title: Tang Wei

text: From November 2009 to March 2010, Tang filmed alongside Hyun Bin in "Late Autumn" (2010), directed by Kim Tae-yong. The film was shot in Seattle, Washington. Tang's performance in "Late Autumn", in which she played an inmate who strikes up a relationship with a man, won over South Korean audiences and made her the only non-Korean to win the Baeksang Awards for Best Actress.


title: Tang Wei

text: In September 2010, it was announced she was to appear in the patriotic tribute film "The Founding of a Party". However her scenes were all cut in the theatrical version, allegedly at the request of Mao Zedong's grandson, Mao Xinyu.


title: Tang Wei

text: In December 2011, she also voiced the character of Pia Sahastrabuddhe in "San Geshagua", the Mandarin Chinese dubbed version of the 2009 Bollywood blockbuster film "3 Idiots" starring Aamir Khan, which was originally portrayed by Kareena Kapoor.


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang returned to mainstream cinema with two major films; "Speed Angels", a car-racing flick directed by Jingle Ma and "Dragon", a martial arts epic directed by Peter Chan. Though "Speed Angels" was a commercial flop, "Dragon" was successful and was named the eighth best movie of 2012 according to "Time" magazine.


title: Tang Wei

text: In 2013, Tang starred opposite actor Wu Xiubo in the Xue Xiaolu directed romantic comedy "Finding Mr. Right". She plays a girl who goes to Seattle to give birth to a child by her wealthy, married boyfriend. The sleeper hit grossed $85 million at the box office in China and Tang received rave reviews for her performance. Shanghai newspaper "City Weekend" wrote, "The most compelling element of the movie however, is still Tang Wei herself. It is a testament to her on-screen charisma that such a shrill, materialistic, and generally awful character can have the audience rooting for her."


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang was then cast to play Xiao Hong, a writer known for depictions of hunger and poverty in China during the 1920s and '30s in Ann Hui's biopic "The Golden Era", which closed at the Venice International Film Festival. Though the film was highly anticipated prior to its premiere, it received mixed reviews and failed to do well at the box office.


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang made her English-language film debut in "Blackhat", an action thriller co-starring Chris Hemsworth and Wang Leehom, her former cast member on Lust, Caution (2007). She also starred in "A Tale of Three Cities", based on the wartime experiences of Jackie Chan's parents.


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang and Wu then teamed up again to film the sequel to "Finding Mr. Right", titled "Book of Love". "Book of Love" was a huge commercial success and became the highest grossing Chinese romantic film of all time.


title: Tang Wei

text: In 2017, Tang was then cast as the female lead of "Long Day's Journey Into Night", directed by Bi Gan. The same year, she announced her return to the small screen in the upcoming historical drama "Empress of the Ming".


title: Tang Wei

text: In 2022, Tang starred in the South Korean mystery-romance film "Decision to Leave", directed by Park Chan-Wook. The film received critical acclaim, with Tang's performance being applauded.


title: Tang Wei

text: Tang married South Korean film director Kim Tae-yong in 2014, in the front yard of the home of Ingmar Bergman on the remote Swedish island of Fårö. A formal wedding ceremony was later held in Hong Kong, with only immediate family members as guests. In August 2016, Tang gave birth to their daughter, Summer.


title: South Korean won

text: The Korean Republic won, unofficially the South Korean won (Symbol: ₩; Code: KRW; Korean: 대한민국 원) is the official currency of South Korea. A single won is divided into 100 jeon, the monetary subunit. The jeon is no longer used for everyday transactions, and it appears only in foreign exchange rates. The currency is issued by the Bank of Korea, based in the capital city of Seoul.


title: South Korean won

text: The old "won" was a cognate of the Chinese yuan and Japanese yen, which were both derived from the Spanish-American silver dollar. It is derived from the hanja (, "won"), meaning "round", which describes the shape of the silver dollar.


title: South Korean won

text: The won was subdivided into 100 "jeon" (), itself a cognate of the Chinese unit of weight mace and synonymous with money in general. The current won (1962 to present) is written in hangul only and does not officially have any hanja associated with it.


title: South Korean won

text: The Korean won, Chinese yuan and Japanese yen were all derived from the Spanish-American silver dollar, a coin widely used for international trade between Asia and the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries.


title: South Korean won

text: During the colonial era under the Japanese (1910–45), the won was replaced by the Korean yen which was at par with the Japanese Yen.


title: South Korean won

text: After World War II ended in 1945, Korea was divided, resulting in two separate currencies, both called won, for the South and the North. Both the Southern won and the Northern won replaced the yen at par. The first South Korean won was subdivided into 100 "jeon".


title: South Korean won

text: The South Korean won initially had a fixed exchange rate to the U.S. dollar at a rate of 15 won to 1 dollar. A series of devaluations followed, the later ones, in part, due to the Korean War (1950–53). The pegs were:


title: South Korean won

text: The first South Korean won was replaced by the "hwan" on February 15, 1953, at a rate of 1 hwan = 100 won.


title: South Korean won

text: In 1946, the Bank of Joseon introduced 10 and 100 won notes. These were followed in 1949 by 5 and 1,000 won notes.


title: South Korean won

text: A new central bank, the Bank of Korea, was established on 12 June 1950, and assumed the duties of Bank of Joseon. Notes were introduced (some dated 1949) in denominations of 5, 10 and 50 jeon, and 100 and 1,000 won. The 500 won notes were introduced in 1952. In 1953, a series of banknotes was issued which, although it gave the denominations in English in won, were, in fact, the first issues of the hwan.


title: South Korean won

text: The won was reintroduced on June 10, 1962, at a rate of 1 won = 10 hwan. It became the sole legal tender on March 22, 1975, with the withdrawal of the last circulating hwan coins. Its ISO 4217 code is KRW. At the reintroduction of the won in 1962, its value was pegged at 125 won = US$1. The following pegs operated between 1962 and 1980:


title: South Korean won

text: On February 27, 1980, efforts were initiated to lead to a floating exchange rate. The won was finally allowed to float on December 24, 1997, when an agreement was signed with the International Monetary Fund. Shortly after, the won was devalued to almost half of its value, as part of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.


title: South Korean won

text: Until 1966, 10 and 50 hwan coins, revalued as 1 and 5 won, were the only coins in circulation. New coins, denominated in won, were introduced by the Bank of Korea on August 16, 1966, in denominations of 1, 5 and 10 won, with the 1 won struck in brass and the 5 and 10 won in bronze. These were the first South Korean coins to display the date in the common era, earlier coins having used the Korean calendar. The 10 and 50 hwan coins were demonetized on March 22, 1975.


title: South Korean won

text: In 1968, as the intrinsic value of the brass 1 won coin far surpassed its face value, new aluminium 1 won coins were issued to replace them. As an attempt to further reduce currency production costs, new 5 and 10 won coins were issued in 1970, struck in brass. Cupronickel 100 won coins were also introduced that year, followed by cupronickel 50 won coins in 1972.


title: South Korean won

text: In 1982, with inflation and the increasing popularity of vending machines, 500 won coins were introduced on June 12, 1982. In January 1983, with the purpose of standardizing the coinage, a new series of 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100 won coins was issued, using the same layout as the 500 won coins, but conserving the coins' old themes.


title: South Korean won

text: The Bank of Korea announced in early 2006 its intention to redesign the 10 won coin by the end of that year. With the increasing cost of production, then at 38 won per 10 won coin, and rumors that some people had been melting the coins to make jewelry, the redesign was needed to make the coin more cost-effective to produce. The new coin is made of copper-coated aluminium with a reduced diameter of 18 mm, and a weight of 1.22 g. Its visual design is the same as the old coin. The new coin was issued on December 18, 2006.


title: South Korean won

text: The 1 and 5 won coins are rarely in circulation since 1992, and prices of consumer goods are rounded to the nearest 10 won. However, they are still in production, minting limited amounts of these two coins every year, for the Bank of Korea's annual mint sets.


title: South Korean won

text: In 1998, the production costs per coin were: 10 won coins each cost 35 won to produce, 100 won coins cost 58 won, and 500 won coins cost 77 won.


title: South Korean won

text: The Bank of Korea designates banknote and coin series in a unique way. Instead of putting those of similar design and issue dates in the same series, it assigns series number X to the Xth design of a given denomination. The series numbers are expressed with Korean letters used in alphabetical order, e.g. . Therefore, ₩1,000 issued in 1983 is series II () because it is the second design of all ₩1,000 designs since the introduction of the South Korean won in 1962.


title: South Korean won

text: In 1962, 10 and 50 jeon, 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500 won notes were introduced by the Bank of Korea. The first issue of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500 won notes was printed in the UK by Thomas De La Rue. The jeon notes together with a second issue of 10 and 100 won notes were printed domestically by the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation.


title: South Korean won

text: In 1965, 100 won notes (series III) were printed using intaglio printing techniques, for the first time on domestically printed notes, to reduce counterfeiting. Replacements for the British 500 won notes followed in 1966, also using intaglio printing, and for the 50 won notes in 1969 using lithoprinting.


title: South Korean won

text: With the economic development from the 1960s, the value of the 500 won notes fell, resulting in a greater use of cashier's checks with higher fixed denominations as means of payment, as well as an increased use of counterfeited ones. In 1970, the 100 won notes were replaced by coins, with the same happening to the 50 won notes in 1972.


title: South Korean won

text: Higher-denomination notes of 5,000 and 10,000 won were introduced in 1972 and 1973, respectively. The notes incorporated new security features, including watermark, security thread, and ultraviolet response fibres, and were intaglio printed. The release of 10,000 won notes was planned to be at the same time as the 5,000 won notes, but problems with the main theme delayed it by a year. Newly designed 500 won notes were also released in 1973, and the need for a medium denomination resulted in the introduction of 1,000 won notes in 1975.


title: South Korean won

text: In 1982, the 500 won note was replaced by a coin. The following year, as part of its policy of rationalizing the currency system, the Bank of Korea issued a new set of notes, as well as a new set of coins. Some of the notes' most notable features were distinguishable marks for the blind under the watermark and the addition of machine-readable language in preparation for mechanization of cash handling. They were also printed on better-quality cotton pulp to reduce the production costs by extending their circulation life.


title: South Korean won

text: To cope with the deregulation of imports of color printers and the increasing use of computers and scanners, modified 5,000 and 10,000 won notes were released between 1994 and 2002 with various new security features, which included color-shifting ink, microprint, segmented metal thread, moiré, and EURion constellation. The latest version of the 5,000 and 10,000 won notes are easily identifiable by the copyright information inscribed under the watermark: "" and year of issue on the obverse, "© The Bank of Korea" and year of issue on the reverse.


title: South Korean won

text: The plates for the 5,000 won notes were produced in Japan, while the ones for the 1,000 and 10,000 won notes were produced by the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation. They were all printed in intaglio.


title: South Korean won

text: Yi Hwang, the man featured on the Korean 1000 won bill, is regarded as one of Korea's most prominent Confucian scholars during the Joseon era. His vast love for knowledge and literature made him known to many and a largely popular historical figure. He dedicated his life and to teaching numerous students. When people think of Yi Hwang now, the Dosanseowon Confucian Academy(안동 도산서원) always comes to mind. It was established in 1574 to honor Yi Hwang (Toegye 퇴계). It was built about 6 years after his death. It was also designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.


title: South Korean won

text: An Interesting fact about how the historical figures on the 1000 won and 5000 won. Yi Hwang was the head teacher and taught the man on the 5000 won. His name was Yi Yulgok, he too also became a famous Confucian scholar under Yi Hwangs guidance and was bestowed the significance of being featured on the 5000 won banknote.


title: South Korean won

text: Yi Yulgok (1536-1584) was a Neo-Confucian thinker and is known to have similar influence as Yi Hwang. Yulgok is responsible for establishing the Kiho school in Korea. He is the son of Shin Saimdang, who was a well-known poet and painter. Yulgok began studying with his mother, but when his mother died, he mourned her loss for 3 years. He then fled to a Buddhist temple in the mountains with the desire to become a monk; however, after a year of studying scriptures, he changed his mind. Given the knowledge he acquired in the Buddhist temple, he placed first in both the preliminary and final civil service examinations in 1564. He then became known as Lord First Candidate of the Nine Examinations. He served in several offices within the metropolitan and provincial government. His official posts included appointments of minister of military affairs, minister of public works, and minister of personnel until he died at age forty-nine.


title: South Korean won

text: Sejong the Great was a famous king during the Joseon era. His legacy includes the creation of the Korean writing system, "hangul" (한글), which occurred in 1443 during the 12th month of the lunar calendar. Later in 1446, the book of Sejong Sillok (조선왕조실록) described the new language of Joseon as Hunminjeongeum (full name;훈민정음 해례본, Hunminjeongeum Haeryebon), was created and information on how to learn the new system and the teachings were published all together in multiple parts. One of Sejong's purposes for creating this new language system was to help common people read and write, many of which were otherwise illiterate. Hunminjeongeum was the original name for Hangeul when it was first created back in the 15th century. The other sections of Hunminjeongeum(훈민정음) called Yeui(예의) was created to describe and teach the reader about each sound of the 28-letter alphabet. With the creation of this book, Hunminjeongeum(훈민정음), we can understand the true vision and concept Sejong the great had for creating this language and how to clearly grasp the rules and usage of it. The next part of the book was called “haerye”(해례), which showed the theories involved with the inventions of the consonants and vowels and the ideas behind the initial, middle, and final sound of a syllable.


title: South Korean won

text: Lastly another special distinction related to the language was, Hunminjeongeum(훈민정음) became a national treasure recognized by the UN in 1997. It was listed in the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. It stated that this document created by Sejong was regarded highly for its linguistic, cultural, and ideological values.


title: South Korean won

text: Shin Saimdang (1504-1551) is a well-known historical figure and is considered the representative image of the Korean woman and icon of the “wise mother and good wife” (hyeonmoyangcheo,현모양처). Shin Saimdang was an artist, writer calligraphist and poet of the Joseon era. She became the first woman to appear on a new Korean banknote since 2009. She is the mother of Yi I and was of great influence on him. She lived in a male-dominant society because of the great influence of Confucianism. For this reason, her real name is unknown and because she is a woman, her name didn't make history. The only accounts of her origin story were from her son Yi Yulgok, unofficial history books, anthologies and from postscripts written by Confucian scholars. Her legacy and her artworks are remembered more than documents that portray her as a good wife and wise mother.


title: South Korean won

text: In 2006, it became a major concern that the South Korean won banknotes were being counterfeited/forged. This led the government to issue a new series of banknotes, with the 5,000 won note being the first one to be redesigned. Later in 2007, the 1,000 and 10,000 won notes were introduced.


title: South Korean won

text: On June 23, 2009, the Bank of Korea released the 50,000 won note. The obverse bears a portrait of Shin Saimdang, a prominent 16th-century artist, calligrapher, and mother of Korean scholar Yulgok, also known as Yi I, who is on the 5,000 won note. This note is the first Korean banknote to feature the portrait of a woman. The release of the 50,000 won note stirred some controversy among shop owners and those with visual impairments due to its similarity in color and numerical denomination with the 5,000 won note.


title: South Korean won

text: New 100,000 won notes were also announced, but their release was later cancelled due to the controversy over the banknote's planned image, featuring the Daedongyeojido map, and not including the disputed Dokdo islands.


title: South Korean won

text: The banknotes include over 10 security features in each denomination. The 50,000 won note has 22 security features, the 10,000 won note 21, the 5,000 won note 17, the 2,000 won note 10 and the 1,000 won note 19. Many modern security features that can be also found in euros, pounds, Canadian dollars, and Japanese yen are included in the banknotes.


title: South Korean won

text: For the first time in the world, KOMSCO, the Korean mint, inserted a new substance in the notes to detect counterfeits. This technique is being exported to Europe, North America, etc.


title: South Korean won

text: As the South Korean economy is evolving through the use of electronic payments, coins of the South Korean won are becoming less used by consumers. The Bank of Korea began a trial which would result in the total cessation of the production of coins by depositing change into prepaid cards. As of 2019, however, public participation in this program has decreased.


title: South Korean won

text: There have been recurring proposals in the South Korean National Assembly to redenominate the won by introducing a new won or new unit, equal to 1,000 old won, and worth nearly one U.S. dollar. While proponents cite a more valuable currency unit better projects the strength of the nation's economy, a majority remain opposed to the idea. Reasons cited are: economic harm if done immediately, no issues on public confidence in the won and its inflation rate, limited cost savings, and the presence of more urgent economic issues.


title: South Korean won

text: The Bank of Korea is the only institution in South Korea with the right to print banknotes and mint coins. The banknotes and coins are printed at the KOMSCO, a government-owned corporation, under the guidance of the Bank of Korea.


title: South Korean won

text: After the new banknotes and coins are printed/minted, they are bundled or rolled and shipped to the headquarters of the Bank of Korea. When delivered, they are deposited inside the bank's vault, ready to be distributed to commercial banks when requested.


title: South Korean won

text: Every year, around Seollal and Chuseok, two major Korean holidays, the Bank of Korea distributes large amounts of its currency to most of the commercial banks in South Korea, which are then given to their customers upon request.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: Rambo is a 2008 American action film directed and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, based on the character John Rambo created by author David Morrell for his novel "First Blood". A sequel to "Rambo III" (1988), it is the fourth installment in the "Rambo" franchise and co-stars Julie Benz, Paul Schulze, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish, Rey Gallegos, Tim Kang, Jake La Botz, Maung Maung Khin, and Ken Howard. The film is dedicated to the memory of Richard Crenna, who died in 2003. Crenna had played Colonel Sam Trautman in the previous films. In the film, Rambo (reprised by Stallone) leads a group of mercenaries into Burma to rescue Christian missionaries, who have been kidnapped by a local infantry unit.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The rights to the "Rambo" franchise were sold to Miramax Films in 1997 after Carolco Pictures went bankrupt. Miramax intended to produce a fourth film but Stallone was unmotivated to reprise the role. The rights were then sold to Nu Image and Millennium Films in 2005, who green-lit the film before the release of "Rocky Balboa". Filming began in Thailand, Mexico, and the United States in January 2007, and ended in May 2007.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: "Rambo" was theatrically released on January 25, 2008, to mixed reviews, with praise aimed at Stallone’s direction and performance, action sequences, and musical score, but criticism for its plot, excessively graphic violence, and political commentary. It grossed $113.2 million worldwide against a production budget between $47.5–50 million. The film was followed by "", released on September 20, 2019.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: Amid the political protests of the Saffron Revolution in Burma, ruthless SPDC officer Major Pa Tee Tint leads Burmese regime army forces in pillaging small villages in a campaign of fear. His soldiers sadistically slaughter innocents, abduct teenage boys to be drafted into his army and hold women hostage to be raped as sex slaves. Meanwhile, 20 years after the events in Afghanistan, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo is still living in Thailand, making a living as a snake catcher and by providing boat rides. Michael Burnett, a missionary doctor, attempts to hire Rambo to ferry his group up the Salween River into Burma on a humanitarian mission to provide medical aid to a village inhabited by the Karen people. Rambo initially refuses, then agrees when convinced by Michael's fiancée Sarah Miller.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: During the trip, the boat is stopped by pirates demanding Sarah in exchange for passage, forcing Rambo to kill them. The missionaries arrive at the village but are attacked by Tint's forces. Sarah, Michael, and other survivors are taken prisoners. The pastor of the missionaries' church comes to Thailand and asks Rambo to guide a team of five mercenaries on a rescue mission. Rambo takes the mercenary to the drop-off point and offers to help, but Lewis, a former SAS soldier and the team's leader, refuses.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: Myint, a Karen rebel familiar with the area, leads the mercenaries to the site of the massacre. As they survey the damage, a squad of Tint's soldiers arrive in a truck with a group of prisoners, whom they proceed to torment. Rambo arrives in time and kills the soldiers with his bow and arrow, freeing the hostages. Rambo joins the mercenaries and they make their way to Tint's camp at night, where they stealthily rescue the surviving hostages.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The next morning, Tint and his soldiers pursue them. Rambo lures a section of the army towards a dormant Tallboy bomb, setting it off with a timed claymore. Tint's forces capture everyone except Rambo, Sarah, and School Boy, the mercenaries' sniper. Before Tint can execute them, Rambo launches a surprise attack with a jeep mounted machine gun and starts slaughtering Tint's men, allowing the mercenaries to escape and engage them. The Karen rebels, led by Myint, arrive and join the fight, helping to overwhelm Tint's soldiers and their arriving naval forces. Defeated, Tint attempts to escape, but Rambo intercepts and disembowels him dead with his machete.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: In the aftermath, Rambo, inspired by Sarah's words, returns to the United States to visit his father at his home in Bowie, Arizona.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The film was an independent production between Nu Image and Emmett/Furla Films for Equity Pictures Medienfonds GmbH. It was green-lit and sold before "Rocky Balboa" was released. In between the making of the third and fourth films in the "Rambo" franchise, the films' original producer, Carolco Pictures, went out of business. In 1997, Miramax purchased the "Rambo" franchise. The following year, Miramax subsidiary Dimension Films intended to make another film, and a writer was hired to write the script, but attempts to make it were deterred by Stallone, who had stated that he no longer wanted to make action movies. In 2005, the studio sold those rights to Millennium Films and Nu Image.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: Stallone had stated that part of the reason that it took so long to produce a fourth film was due to a lack of a compelling story that motivated him to return to the role. An early idea was to have Rambo travel to Mexico to rescue a kidnapped young girl. Stallone thought it was "good", however, he felt the idea lacked the "essence of Rambo", still wanting the character to be a "lost man wandering the world". The premise would later be used for "". Stallone got the idea to set the film in Burma from the United Nations, which he later pitched to producers.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The producers found the idea compelling after visiting Karen refugee camps. Maung Maung Khin is a former Karen freedom fighter and stated that if he accepted the role of the film's villain, there was a chance some of his family would have been incarcerated in Burma, but accepted the role regardless, feeling that bringing awareness of the Saffron Revolution was important.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: A different director was originally attached to direct the film but left due to creative disagreements. Stallone was reluctant to direct the film due to not being prepared nor having a vision for the film but later became excited when he came up with the idea of "what if the film was directed by Rambo? What if the film had his personality?" Graham McTavish later echoed this idea, stating, "In many ways, Rambo directed the movie." Paul Schulze stated that there were rewrites by Stallone nearly every morning. The film had a production crew of 560 people, including 450 Thai crew members, and over 80 foreign members from Australia, America, Canada, Myanmar and the United Kingdom.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: Stallone stated that due to the small production budget the only way to make the film memorable was to make it graphically violent. He said "we were all sitting around in looking at the small production budget. Then I said 'Hey, fake blood is cheap, lets make it all-out bloody.'" Filming started on January 22, 2007, and ended on May 4, 2007. It was shot in Chiang Mai, Thailand as well as in Mexico and the United States in Arizona and California. While filming near Burma, Stallone and the rest of the crew narrowly avoided being shot by the Burmese military. Stallone described Burma as a "hellhole". He said, "We had shots fired above our heads" and that he "witnessed survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land-mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off."


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: "John Rambo" was the original working title for the film but was changed in the US because Stallone thought that audiences might think that this is the final film in the "Rambo" series (due to the then recently released "Rocky Balboa"), which was not his original intent. In many other countries, the title "John Rambo" is used because the first "Rambo" film was known as "Rambo" in those countries. The film premiered on US television as "Rambo", but the title sequence referred to it as "John Rambo".


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: On October 12, 2007, Lionsgate announced that the film title was being changed to "Rambo: To Hell and Back". After some negative feedback from the online community, Stallone spoke with Harry Knowles and said: Lionsgate jumped the gun on this. I just was thinking that the title "John Rambo" was derivative of "Rocky Balboa" and might give people the idea that this is the last "Rambo" film, and I don't necessarily feel that it will be. He's definitely a superb athlete, there's no reason he can't continue onto another adventure. Like John Wayne with "The Searchers".


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: Brian Tyler composed the original score for the film. Stallone wanted Tyler to incorporate Jerry Goldsmith's original themes into the film. He did not rely on Goldsmith's actual theme, though he based his own theme and orchestrations on the style of the original to maintain the musical series. The soundtrack comprises 20 tracks.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The DVD and Blu-ray Disc were released in the United States on May 27, 2008. The DVD was released in a single disc edition and 2-disc edition. The DVD was released in the UK on June 23, 2008. The film was the 19th best selling DVD of 2008 with 1.7m units sold and an overall gross of $41,811,370. In 2010, the film was included into the DVD and Blu-ray release of the "Rambo: Complete Collector's Set". The film was released on 4K Ultra HD on September 3, 2019, featuring the theatrical and extended cut.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: In the United States and Canada, the DVD earned $40 million, and the Blu-ray earned $2.2 million, totaling $42.3 million in domestic video sales.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: During a panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2008, Cliff Stephenson announced that a "slightly different, slightly longer version of "Rambo"" will be released in 2009. The extended cut premiered at the 2008 Zurich Film Festival. The extended cut was released exclusively on Blu-ray on July 27, 2010, and runs at 99 minutes. The extended cut was marketed as "Rambo: Extended Cut" but the film itself replaces the original title card with the original working title "John Rambo". The extended cut restructures the film and restores most of the deleted scenes from the Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD of the theatrical cut. The Blu-ray features a 7.1 DTS-HD mix, and an 84-minute production diary titled ""Rambo: To Hell and Back"". The extended cut premiered on Spike TV on July 11, 2010, two weeks before its Blu-ray debut and to commemorate Stallone's then-latest film "The Expendables".


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: "Rambo" opened in 2,751 North American theaters on January 25, 2008, and grossed $6,490,000 on its opening day, and $18,200,000 over its opening weekend. It was the second highest-grossing movie for the weekend in the U.S. and Canada behind "Meet the Spartans".


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The film has a box office gross of $113,344,290, of which $42,754,105 was from Canada and the United States.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: Europe's biggest cinema chain (and the third biggest in the world), Odeon, refused to show the film on any of its screens in the United Kingdom, due to a dispute with its British distributor Sony Pictures over rental terms for the film. The film was shown in Ireland and the United Kingdom by other theater chains such as Empire Cinemas, Vue, Cineworld and Ward Anderson. The film was not shown in the French-speaking part of Switzerland due to legal and commercial problems with the distributor, even if it was available on screens of France and the Swiss German-speaking part.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: "Rambo" received mixed reviews, with critics praising the film's action sequences and Stallone's performance, but criticizing the film's excessive violence. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads: "Sylvester Stallone knows how to stage action sequences, but the movie's uneven pacing and excessive violence (even for the franchise) is more nauseating than entertaining." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: In his review for "The New York Times", A.O. Scott wrote, "Mr. Stallone is smart enough—or maybe dumb enough, though I tend to think not—to present the mythic dimensions of the character without apology or irony. His face looks like a misshapen chunk of granite, and his acting is only slightly more expressive, but the man gets the job done. Welcome back." Michael H. Price of "Fort Worth Business Press" wrote, "Stallone invests the role with a realistic acceptance of the aging process, and with traces reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart in 1951's "The African Queen" and Clint Eastwood in 1992's "Unforgiven" — to say nothing of the influences that the original "First Blood" had absorbed from Marlon Brando in 1953's "The Wild One" and Tom Laughlin in 1971's "Billy Jack"."


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: When asked what his take on the film was, "First Blood" writer David Morrell said:I'm happy to report that overall I'm pleased. The level of violence might not be for everyone, but it has a serious intent. This is the first time that the tone of my novel "First Blood" has been used in any of the movies. It's spot-on in terms of how I imagined the character — angry, burned-out, and filled with self-disgust because Rambo hates what he is and yet knows it's the only thing he does well. ... I think some elements could have been done better, [but] I think this film deserves a solid three stars.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, Sylvester Stallone singled out the movie as one of his best films:One film I’m truly proud of — it’s the best action film I’ve ever done because it’s the most truthful — is Rambo IV, dealing with Burma, where they’ve had a civil war for 67 years. But I got excoriated because the movie’s so violent. And it is violent. It’s horrifying. It’s children being burnt alive. That’s what makes civil war worse than anything: It’s your neighbor, all of a sudden, killing you. I was really happy with that film, and I never thought it would ever reach the theater. I thought, “They’re never going to show this.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The film is banned by the Burmese government. Upon release, the then-ruling military junta ordered DVD vendors in Burma not to distribute the film due to the movie's content. Despite having never been released there theatrically or on DVD, bootleg versions of "Rambo" are available. The opposition youth group Generation Wave copied and distributed the film as anti-Tatmadaw propaganda.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: The Karen National Liberation Army has said that the movie gave them a great boost of morale. Some rebels in Burma have even adopted dialogue from the movie (most notably "Live for nothing, or die for something") as rallying points and battle cries. "That, to me," said Stallone, "is one of the proudest moments I've ever had in film." Also, overseas Burmese have praised the movie for its vivid portrayal of the military's oppression of the Karen people.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: In 2009, Stallone announced plans for a fifth film titled "Rambo V: The Savage Hunt". The film would have been loosely based on "Hunter" by James Byron Huggins and would have focused on Rambo leading an elite special forces kill team to hunt and kill a genetically engineered creature. In 2011, Sean Hood was hired to write a new script, separate from "The Savage Hunt", titled "Rambo: Last Stand" that Hood described was "more in line with the small-town thriller of "First Blood"". In 2012, Hood revealed that "Rambo V" was on hold while Stallone finishes "The Expendables 2". Hood also revealed his uncertainty whether the film will be similar to "Unforgiven" or will be a passing-of-the-torch. In 2016, Sylvester Stallone revealed that "Rambo V" was no longer in production.


title: Rambo (2008 film)

text: In May 2018, "Rambo V" was re-announced and was scheduled to begin filming in September with the plot focusing on Rambo taking on a Mexican drug cartel. Stallone was confirmed to be co-writing the script with Matt Cirulnick, but was unlikely to direct. That same month, Stallone confirmed that the film was scheduled for a fall 2019 release. In August 2018, Adrian Grunberg was announced as the director. Principal photography began in October 2018. "Rambo: Last Blood" was theatrically released in the United States on September 20, 2019.


title: RPK

text: The RPK (, English: "Kalashnikov hand-held machine gun"), sometimes retroactively termed the RPK-47, is a Soviet 7.62×39mm light machine gun that was developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the early 1960s, in parallel with the AKM assault rifle. It was created to standardize the small arms inventory of the Soviet Army, where it replaced the 7.62×39mm RPD light machine gun. The RPK continues to be used by the armed forces of countries of the former Soviet Union and certain African and Asian nations. The RPK is also manufactured in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia.


title: RPK

text: The RPK functions identically to the AK-47. It also uses the same 7.62×39mm ammunition. It has a similar design layout to the Kalashnikov series of rifles, with modifications to increase the RPK's effective range and accuracy, enhance its sustained fire capability, and strengthen the receiver.


title: RPK

text: The RPK features a thicker and longer barrel than the AKM. This allows for it to be fired for longer without permanent loss in accuracy due to the barrel heating up. The chrome-lined barrel is permanently fixed to the receiver and cannot be replaced in the field. It is fitted with a new front sight base, and the gas block lacks both a bayonet lug and an under-barrel cleaning rod guide. The barrel also features a folding bipod mounted near the muzzle, and a front sight base with a lug that limits the bipod's rotation around the axis of the barrel. The barrel has a threaded muzzle, enabling the use of muzzle devices such as flash hiders, compensators, and blank-firing adapters. When a muzzle device is not being used, the threads on the muzzle can be covered by a thread protector. The barrel is pinned to the receiver in a modified trunnion, reinforced by ribbing, and is slightly wider than the trunnion used on the standard AKM type rifles. Symmetrical bulges on both sides of the front trunnion ensure a proper fit inside the receiver.


title: RPK

text: The RPK also has a slightly longer receiver, by about 20 mm or less. This was done to decrease the fire rate slightly, but not significantly enough to lower it any less than 600 rounds per minute. The U-shaped receiver is stamped from a smooth sheet of steel compared to the sheet metal receiver used on the standard AKM rifles. It uses a modified AKM recoil spring assembly that consists of a rear spring guide rod from the AK and a new forward flat guide rod and coil spring. It features a thick laminated wood foregrip and a fixed laminated wood "club-foot" buttstock similar to the stock used on the RPD, which is designed to allow the user to fire from the prone position more comfortably. It uses a standard AKM pistol grip and can also use standard AKM detachable box magazines, but it is most commonly used with a 40-round box magazine or a 75-round drum magazine. Interchangeability of parts between the RPK and AKM are moderate.


title: RPK

text: The weapon's rear sight leaf is elevation adjustable, and graduated for ranges of 100 to 1,000 meters in 100 m increments. The rear sight leaf also features a windage adjustment knob unique to the RPK series of rifles.


title: RPK

text: Supplied with the RPK are: spare magazines, a cleaning rod, cleaning kit (stored in a hollowed compartment in the buttstock), a sling, oil bottle, and magazine pouches (a single-pocket pouch for a drum magazine or a 4-pocket pouch for box magazines).


title: RPK

text: The RPK is the standard light machine gun/squad automatic model and is chambered in 7.62×39mm. It was adopted by the former Soviet Union and was issued mainly to motorized units. It was later adopted by several military agencies around the world.


title: RPK

text: The RPKS ("S" — Skladnoy (Russian: складной) means "folding" [stock]) is a variant of the RPK with a side-folding wooden stock was intended primarily for the air assault infantry. Changes to the design of the RPKS are limited only to the shoulder stock mounting, at the rear of the receiver. It uses a trunnion riveted to both receiver walls that has a socket and tang, allowing the stock to hinge on a pivot pin. The trunnion has a cut-out on the right side which is designed to engage the stock catch and lock it in place when folded. The wooden stock is mounted in a pivoting hull, which contains a catch that secures the buttstock in the extended position. The rear sling loop was moved from the left side of the stock body to the right side of the stock frame.


title: RPK

text: The RPK-74 (РПК-74) was introduced in 1974 together with the AK-74 assault rifle and chambered for the new 5.45×39mm intermediate cartridge. It was derived from the AK-74 rifle, with modifications that mirror those made to the AKM to create the RPK.


title: RPK

text: The RPK-74 also uses a longer and heavier chrome-plated barrel, which has a new gas block with a gas channel at a 90° angle to the bore axis, and a ring for the cleaning rod. It is also equipped with a folding bipod and a different front sight tower. The muzzle is threaded for a flash suppressor or blank-firing device.


title: RPK

text: Additionally, the RPK-74 has a modified return mechanism compared to the AK-74, which uses a new type of metal spring guide rod and recoil spring. The rear sight assembly, forward handguard and receiver dust cover were all retained from the RPK.