title: Syracuse University

text: The graduate program of the College of Visual and Performing Art (VPA) is considered one of the top 50 programs in the US. VPA ranked No. 14 in multimedia/visual communications, a specialty that includes disciplines found in the college's Department of Transmedia, which offers M.F.A. programs in art photography, art video, computer art, and film. VPA also ranked No. 16 in ceramics, No. 19 in printmaking, and No. 20 in sculpture, which are M.F.A. programs based in the Department of Art. Project Advance (or SUPA) is a nationally recognized concurrent enrollment program honored by the American Association for Higher Education, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, and the National Institute of Education.


title: Syracuse University

text: Civil liberties organization FIRE gave Syracuse its 2021 "Lifetime Censorship Award", "[f]or its unashamed assault on expressive freedoms".


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University has 1013 full-time instructional faculty, 96 part-time faculty, and 454 adjunct faculty. Approximately 86% of the full-time faculty have earned PhDs or professional degrees. The current faculty includes scholars such as United States National Academy of Sciences member Jozef J. Zwislocki, Professor of Psychology, who developed mathematical models on the mechanics of the inner and middle ear; MacArthur Fellow Don Mitchell, Professor of Geography, who has developed studies in cultural geography; Bruce Kingma, Associate Provost and Kauffman Professor of Entrepreneurship, a pioneer in the field of information economics and online learning; Catherine Bertini, Professor of Practice in Public Administration, who has worked on the role of women in food distribution; Frederick C. Beiser, Professor of Philosophy, one of leading scholars of German idealism; Mary Karr, the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of Literature, who has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry; John Caputo, the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Humanities, who founded weak theology; Sean O'Keefe, former chairman of Airbus Group, Inc. and former Secretary of the Navy; and political theorist Elizabeth F. Cohen.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". According to the National Science Foundation, Syracuse spent $154.3 million on research and development in FY 2019, ranking it 136th in the nation. Through the university's Office of Research, which promotes research, technology transfer, and scholarship, and its Office of Sponsored Programs, which assists faculty in seeking and obtaining external research support, SU supports research in the fields of management and business, sciences, engineering, education, information studies, energy, environment, communications, computer science, public and international affairs, and other specialized areas. Syracuse became a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) in 1966, an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of research and education. In 2011, however, the university's board of trustees voted to pull out of the research consortium due to dispute over the counting of non-Federal research dollars.


title: Syracuse University

text: SU has established 29 research centers and institutes that focuses research, often across disciplines, in a variety of areas. The Burton Blatt Institute advances research in economic and social issues for individuals with disabilities, and it has international projects in the field. The Martin J Whitman School of Management supports the largest number of research centers, including The Ballentine Investment Institute, the George E. Bennett Center for Accounting and Tax Research, the Robert H. Brethen Operations Management Institute, Michael J. Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship, The H. H. Franklin Center for Supply Chain Management, Olivia and Walter Kiebach Center for International Business Studies, and the Earl V. Snyder Innovation Management Program. In 2010, the university launched SURFACE, an online, open-access institutional repository for research, which is run by the Syracuse University Library System.


title: Syracuse University

text: Other research programs include The Syracuse Biomaterials Institute, the Alan K. Campbell Public Affairs Institute through the Maxwell School, and the Center for the Study of Popular Television through the Newhouse School of Public Communications.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University also has collaborations with CERN and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, among other institutes. Syracuse also has a comparatively large number of collaborators on the LIGO Scientific project, which researches the gravitational waves.


title: Syracuse University

text: In June 2022, Syracuse University announced the launch of the Center for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship, a collaborative initiative between the Newhouse School and Maxwell School, in Washington D.C. The center aims to address the loss of trust in journalism and democracy, political polarization, and the deterioration of civil discourse. It will host prominent speakers at public events, sponsor scholarly and applied research, and provide students with an opportunity to spend a semester in Washington D.C.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University Press is a university press that is part of Syracuse University. The areas of focus for the Press include Middle East studies, Native American studies, peace and conflict resolution, Irish studies and Jewish studies, New York State, television and popular culture, sports and entertainment. The Press was founded on August 2, 1943, by Chancellor William Pearson Tolley and benefactor Thomas J. Watson. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses.


title: Syracuse University

text: Every year as a tradition, the university invites speakers from around the world, leading thinkers and practitioners in sustainability, advertising, redevelopment, human rights, journalism, and the environment. The lecturers are selected for their academic and public service excellence. The university lectures are supported by the university trustees, alumni, and friends. Previous university lecturers have included Ishmael Beah, author of ""; 45th vice president of the United States Al Gore; economist and Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus; author and columnist William Safire; environmental justice advocate Majora Carter; and environmental law attorney Robert Kennedy Jr.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University has a diverse student population, representing all 50 US states and over 127 countries. In 2020, 52% of that class are women. Approximately 15 percent of students are from outside of the US, and are supported by the "Center for International Services" within the university's Division of Student Affairs.


title: Syracuse University

text: CitrusTV (formerly UUTV, HillTV and Synapse) is the university's entirely student-run television studio and one of the largest student-run TV studios in the country with over 300 active members. There are also multiple student-run magazines and other print publications, including: "The Onondagan Yearbook (defunct), The Daily Orange, Student Voice, Perception, Jerk Magazine, What the Health, 360, Baked Magazine, The Out Crowd", and "Equal Time." The Daily Orange, a fully independent student newspaper published since 1903, is free and published daily during the Syracuse University academic year. It is often ranked amongst the best student newspapers in the United States.


title: Syracuse University

text: WAER, a radio station owned by the University, features jazz music, NPR, and Syracuse Orange play-by-play programming around the clock. It is best known for its sports staff, which has produced many prominent sportscasters. WJPZ-FM and WERW are independent student-run radio stations and feature Top 40 (CHR), underground rock music, world music, folk music, occasional news, and some political or public affairs programs.


title: Syracuse University

text: Founded in 1957, the Student Association (SA) represents the undergraduate students of both SU and ESF. SA elects a President and Vice President (on a unified ticket) each academic year. They also each year elect a Comptroller, who, with the assembly, oversees the allocation and designation of the Student Activity Fee that was first collected in the 1968–69 school year. The goals of SA are to participate through a unified student voice in the formulation of Syracuse University rules and regulations. The SA-SGA Alumni Organization maintains the history and an organizational timeline on its website.


title: Syracuse University

text: The graduate students at Syracuse University are represented by the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), while the law students at Syracuse University are represented by the Law Student Senate. Each of the three organizations elects students to serve in the Syracuse University Senate, which also includes faculty, staff, and administrators.


title: Syracuse University

text: The Syracuse University fraternity and sorority system offers organizations that are members of the Panhellenic Council (NPC), the Interfraternity Council (IFC), the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations, the National Multicultural Greek Council, the Professional Fraternity Council (PFC), and the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC). In addition to SU students, ESF students are permitted to join the university's fraternity and sorority system.


title: Syracuse University

text: The oldest fraternity at SU is Delta Kappa Epsilon, which established a chapter in 1871 soon after the founding of the university, followed by Psi Upsilon in 1875 and Phi Kappa Psi in 1884. Sororities were also a part of the early history of SU. Alpha Phi was founded at SU in 1872, followed by Gamma Phi Beta in 1874 ("first organization to use the term "sorority""), and Alpha Gamma Delta in 1904. Alpha Phi Alpha established a chapter at SU in 1910 and was reorganized in 1949 and 1973. The first NPHC fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, was established at SU in 1922, and the first NPHC sorority, Delta Sigma Theta in 1973. Alpha Phi Delta, the only historically Italian-American heritage fraternity, was founded at SU in 1914. University policy prohibits fraternities and sororities from discriminating "on the basis of race, creed, color, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, age, disability, sexual orientation, or status as a disabled veteran or a veteran of the Vietnam era."


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University Ambulance, commonly referred to as SUA, is a SU Health Services-based student organization that responds to over 1,500 medical emergencies each year. Providing intermediate life support (ILS), rapid cardiac defibrillation, emergency and non-emergency transportation, and special event standby services, SUA operates two full-time transporting ambulances, a supervisor's fly car, and a MCI trailer for mass-casualty incidents. Additionally, SUA operates four transport vans for non-emergency transports. Advanced life support (ALS) mutual aid is provided by the City of Syracuse's private EMS provider, American Medical Response (AMR). SUA was formed in 1973 by a group of students out of a need for emergency medical services on campus. Starting with only a few members and meager equipment, the Syracuse University Medical Crisis Unit was formed. The organization has evolved greatly over time but, with 70+ volunteer students, remains a student-run organization to this day. SUA provides emergency and non-emergency services 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the academic school year, and is funded by a portion of the student health fee.


title: Syracuse University

text: University Union (UU) is the official programming board of the university. It is entirely run by a team of dedicated students and is one of the largest registered student organizations at SU in terms of budget, membership, size, and frequency of events. University Union hosts large-scale concert events including the annual Juice Jam festival in September and Block Party in April. Additionally, UU keeps the campus entertained throughout the year with the smaller Bandersnatch Concert Series, weekly cinemas screenings, special advanced screenings, and events featuring popular comedians and speakers. UU has served as the primary source of large-scale entertainment on the Syracuse campus ever since its establishment in 1962.


title: Syracuse University

text: Hendricks Chapel is an interfaith chapel located on the Quad, and serves as the spiritual center of Syracuse University. The Chapel is home to ten chaplaincies, including Baptist, Buddhist, Evangelical Christian, Historically Black Churches, Islamic, Jewish, Lutheran, Pagan, Methodist, and Roman Catholic. In addition, there are a number of student religious groups, including groups associated with the chaplaincies as well as Adventist, Christian Science, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim, Orthodox Christian, Pentecostal, and more.


title: Syracuse University

text: Additional buildings located on campus support specific religious groups, including the Alibrandi Catholic Center and the Winnick Hillel Center for Jewish Life. Off campus, the Chabad House and Islamic Society of CNY also support student religious life.


title: Syracuse University

text: The university's five dining halls, thirteen cafes, and two food courts serve thousands of students every day. In 2022, "The Daily Orange" reported the per meal cost of the meal plan was $19.59. The Ernie Davis dining hall was built in 2009. It has been recognized for its architecture and named one of the best dining halls in the United States. Syracuse's food program is managed by the university rather than a third party vendor. In 2022, "Food Management" reported the university had 6,844 students enrolled in its daily meal plans. In 2014, "Food Management" reported the university had 8,108 students enrolled in its daily meal plans. Since 2017, the university has received an A+ grade from PETA and been included on the organization's Dean's List of schools in the "vanguard" of vegan cuisine. The Kimmel food court, with restaurants that included Burger King and Dunkin, closed in 2021 after the Schine Student Center reopened after renovations.


title: Syracuse University

text: A student-run chapter of the Food Recovery Network donates about 70 pounds of leftover food each day to food banks. During the fall 2021 semester, the program donated more than 5,000 pounds of food. However, a 2022 "Daily Orange" report found more than 230 pounds of food still goes to waste each day. In 2010, the dining halls began collecting food waste to be turned into compost with the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency. Two student-run food pantries operate on campus, one in Hendricks Chapel and one on South Campus. The pantries are supplemented by a garden that produced 450 pounds of fresh produce in 2020.


title: Syracuse University

text: Journalist and alumna Avery Yale Kamila reported the dining halls stopped serving veal in 1991, following student protests, and at the time served soy milk, veggie burgers, and vegan casseroles. Alumnus and former basketball player Matt Roe, who played for the Orange in 1986-1989, told "The Athletic" in 2020 when asked about Syracuse food memories that "Everything on campus was good. Sometimes Shaw Dining Hall was decent."


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University's sports teams have had "the Orange" nickname since 2004, although the former names of Orangemen and Orangewomen are still sometimes used. The school's mascot is Otto the Orange. SU fields intercollegiate teams in eight men's sports and 12 women's sports. The men's and women's basketball teams, the football team, and both the men's and women's lacrosse teams play in the JMA Dome, formerly known as the Carrier Dome. Other sports are located at the nearby Manley Field House, except ice hockey which takes place in the Tennity Ice Skating Pavilion. Most of Syracuse University's intercollegiate teams participate in NCAA Division I in the Atlantic Coast Conference since 2013. The Syracuse Orange women's ice hockey team participates in College Hockey America.


title: Syracuse University

text: SU has reached 31 team national championships, including 14 for men's lacrosse, six for men's rowing, five for women's rowing, two cross country running, and one each in boxing, football, women's lacrosse, and women's field hockey. Under long-time the Hall of Fame head coach Jim Boeheim, men's basketball team won seven Big East regular-season championships, five Big East tournament championships, and 35 NCAA tournament appearances, including the 2003 NCAA championship. The men's basketball team holds the largest on-campus attendance record of 35,642 attendees. The record was set in the JMA Dome playing Duke on Saturday, February 23, 2019.


title: Syracuse University

text: In 1959, Syracuse earned its first National Championship following an undefeated football season and a Cotton Bowl victory over Texas. The team featured sophomore running back Ernie Davis who, in 1961, became the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy. Davis was slated to play for the Cleveland Browns in the same backfield as Jim Brown, but died of leukemia before being able to play professionally.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse played its first intercollegiate lacrosse game in 1916, and captured its first USILA championship in 1920. It won USILA championships in 1922, 1924, and 1925. In the modern NCAA era, Syracuse is the first school to capture 11 National Championships, the most of any team in college lacrosse history. Most recently, Syracuse reached the men's Division I championship game in 2013 after winning two championships in 2008 & 2009 seasons and reaching the quarterfinals in 2011. The women's lacrosse team reached the NCAA Division I National Championship game for the first time in school history in 2012, which they lost to Northwestern.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University rowing crew is a full member of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA). The IRA governs intercollegiate rowing between varsity rowing programs across the United States. Syracuse was added as "full" members of the association briefly after its founding in 1894. Syracuse crew also participates in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges. In 1997, the Syracuse Women's Rowing team qualified for the inaugural NCAA Division I Rowing Championship in Rancho Cordova, California, finishing as the 12th ranked crew in the country. The women's rowing team competes in two conferences, both the Atlantic Coast Conference as well as the prestigious Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges, and formerly the Big East Conference.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University hosted the 2019 United States Intercollegiate Boxing Association national championship tournament.


title: Syracuse University

text: Toward the end of the 1970s, Syracuse University was under pressure to improve its football facilities to remain an NCAA Division I football school. Its small concrete stadium, Archbold Stadium, was seventy years old and not up to the standards of other schools. The stadium could not be expanded; it had been reduced from 40,000 seats to 26,000 due to the fire codes. Syracuse University decided to build a new stadium. In 1978, Archbold Stadium was demolished to make way for the Carrier Dome, which was named after Carrier Global Corporation following a $2.75 million gift and would have a domed Teflon-coated, fiberglass inflatable roof. It would also serve as the home for the men's basketball team, as a replacement for Manley Field House. The Carrier Dome was constructed between April 1979 and September 1980.


title: Syracuse University

text: In May 2018, the university announced a major renovation to the Carrier Dome as the central portion of a larger campus update. The renovation, estimated to cost $120 million, was completed in 2022. The most significant changes are the replacement of the current air-supported roof with a fixed roof, two-thirds of which will be translucent, the installation of air conditioning and the largest center-hung video board in college sports. The upgrade also included new lighting and sound systems, Wi-Fi improvements, accessibility upgrades, improved restrooms, and new concession spaces. The university announced the next phase of its work towards enhanced stadium experience, which will include complete replacement of benches with individual seats; a construction of an event facility adjacent to the Dome; and an upgrade of the entire wireless infrastructure. This phase two work will begin in spring 2023 following Commencement and will be completed ahead of the 2024 football season.


title: Syracuse University

text: In May 2022, Syracuse University and JMA Wireless inked a 10-year naming rights deal to rename the Carrier Dome as the JMA Wireless Dome, referred to as the JMA Dome. This is only the second name for the venue since it opened in 1980.


title: Syracuse University

text: Syracuse University has over 260,000 alumni representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 171 countries and territories. Among the individuals who have attended or graduated from Syracuse University include writers George Saunders, Stephen Crane, Joyce Carol Oates, John D. MacDonald, Cheryl Strayed, Shirley Jackson, and Alice Sebold; William Safire, Pulitzer Prize winning commentator; Pierre Ramond, string theorist; Cambridge University historian Sir Moses I. Finley; Sir John Stanley, British Member of Parliament; Salvador del Solar, former prime minister of Peru; Arthur Rock, legendary venture capitalist and cofounder of Intel; Vishal Sikka, Former CEO and MD of Infosys; Donna Shalala, CEO of the Clinton Foundation; Joe Biden, President of the United States; Kathy Hochul, 57th Governor of New York; Robert Jarvik, inventor of the first artificial heart implanted into human beings; Eileen Collins, first female commander of a Space Shuttle; Prince Sultan bin Salman, first Arab, first Muslim and the youngest person to travel to space; Robert Menschel, partner/director at Goldman Sachs; Marilyn Loden, who coined the phrase "glass ceiling"; Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr., owner of Conde Nast publications; Lowell Paxson, founder of Home Shopping Network; Betsey Johnson fashion designer; David P. Weber, lawyer and Certified Fraud Examiner, who reported misconduct in the Bernard L. Madoff and R. Allen Stanford frauds; Andrew P. Bakaj, former Department of Defense and CIA Official, attorney and lead counsel for the whistleblower during the Impeachment Inquiry and the subsequent Impeachment of President Donald Trump; Abramoff scandal lawyer Kevin Ring, and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a prominent investor and member of the Saudi royal family. Emily C. Gorman, former director of the United States Women's Army Corps, completed her graduate studies at Syracuse.


title: Syracuse University

text: Alumni in journalism and broadcasting include Ted Koppel, Megyn Kelly, Michael Barkann, Bob Costas, Marv Albert, Len Berman, Marc S. Ellenbogen, Marty Glickman, Dorothy Thompson, Beth Mowins, Dave Pasch, Sean McDonough, Ian Eagle, Dave O'Brien, Dick Stockton, Arun Shourie, Mike Tirico, Brian Higgins, Adam Zucker, Lakshmi Singh, Larry Hryb (of Microsoft), Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes", Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Payne and Adam Schein of Mad Dog Sports Radio, Vietnam war historian and correspondent Bernard Fall, national political columnist Roscoe Drummond, Jeff Glor, CBS News anchor, Vijay Kumar Pandey, Nepalese Columnist and TV personality.


title: Syracuse University

text: Notable SU alumni in the performing arts and art include Dick Clark, Taye Diggs, Rob Edwards, Peter Falk, Vera Farmiga, Peter Guber, Peter Hyams, Frank Langella, Jessie Mueller, Lou Reed, Tom Everett Scott, Aaron Sorkin, Jerry Stiller, Lexington Steele, Bill Viola, Vanessa Williams, Pete Yorn, and artist Susan Sensemann.


title: Syracuse University

text: Prominent athletes include Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon, Jim Brown, actor and NFL Hall of Famer with the Cleveland Browns, arguably the greatest running back of all time; Ernie Davis, the first African-American Heisman Trophy winner immortalized in the motion picture ""; Donovan McNabb, former NFL quarterback; former Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Marvin Harrison; Dwight Freeney, defensive end for the San Diego Chargers; Larry Csonka, former Miami Dolphins running back, Pro Football Hall of Famer and television host, Carmelo Anthony, forward for Syracuse's NCAA men's basketball championship squad and NBA veteran; NBA forward Jerami Grant; 2013-2014 NBA Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams; 7-time NBA All Star, pro basketball Hall of Famer and former Mayor of Detroit Dave Bing; Tim Green, former Atlanta Falcons player, author, lawyer, and National Public Radio commentator; Darryl Johnston, three-time Super Bowl winner with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s; Mikey Powell, who formerly played lacrosse for the Boston Cannons; Floyd Little, who played for the Denver Broncos; Kyle Johnson, who played the majority of his NFL career with the Denver Broncos; John Mackey a member of the NFL Hall of Fame played for the Baltimore Colts (1963–71); and Tom Coughlin, former New York Giants head coach and executive VP of football operation at Jacksonville Jaguars.


title: Syracuse University

text: The College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) has a long affiliation with Syracuse University, shares many campus resources, and operates its main academic campus immediately adjacent to Syracuse University. ESF was founded in 1911 as the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, under the leadership of Syracuse University Trustee Louis Marshall, with the active support of Syracuse University Chancellor Day. Its founding followed the Governor's veto of annual appropriations to a separate New York State College of Forestry at Cornell.


title: Syracuse University

text: ESF is an autonomous institution, administratively separate from SU, while resources, facilities, and some infrastructure are shared. The two schools share a common Schedule of Classes; students at both institutions may take courses at the other, and degrees from ESF bear the Syracuse University seal along with the State University of New York. A number of concurrent degree programs and certificates are offered between the schools, as well. The college receives an annual appropriation as part of the SUNY budget, and the state builds and maintains all of the college's educational facilities. The state has similar relationships with five statutory colleges that are at Alfred University and Cornell University.


title: Syracuse University

text: ESF faculty, students, and students' families join those from SU to take part in a joint convocation ceremony at the beginning of the academic year in August and joint commencement exercises in May. ESF and SU students share access to libraries, recreational facilities, student clubs, and other activities at both institutions, except for the schools' intercollegiate sports teams, affiliated with the NCAA and USCAA, respectively. First-year ESF students live in Centennial Hall on ESF's campus.


title: Syracuse University

text: The medical school was formerly a college within SU, known as the Syracuse University Medical School. In 1950, SU sold the medical school to the State University of New York system. The campuses of the two universities are adjacent to each other on University Hill in Syracuse. The universities jointly offer a Master of Public Health, a PhD program in biomedical engineering, and M.D./MBA degree program.


title: Syracuse University

text: Binghamton University was established in 1946 as Triple Cities College, to serve the needs of local veterans of the Binghamton, New York area, who were returning from World War II. Established in Endicott, New York, the college was a branch of Syracuse University. Triple Cities College offered local students the first two years of their education, while the following two were spent at Syracuse University. In 1946, students could earn their degrees entirely at the Binghamton campus. In 1950, it was absorbed by the State University of New York and renamed Harpur College.


title: Syracuse University

text: Utica University, an independent private university located in Utica, New York, was founded by Syracuse University in 1946. Utica University became independent from Syracuse in 1995 but still offers its students the option to receive a specialized bachelor's degree from Syracuse University through a mutual relationship between the two schools.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (often abbreviated as DHMIS) is a British surrealist musical comedy horror web and television series created by Becky Sloan, Joe Pelling, and Baker Terry. The series consists of a short six-episode web series that was released from 29 July 2011 to 19 June 2016 on YouTube, and a television series in 2022 on All 4 and Channel 4. The series incorporates puppetry, live action, stop motion, traditional animation, flash animation, clay animation, and computer animation.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: In the series, each episode starts like a typical children's series, consisting of anthropomorphic puppets akin to those featured in "Sesame Street" and other popular children's television programmes. The series parodies and satirises these TV programmes by contrasting its childlike, colourful environment and its inhabitants against disturbing themes; each episode features a surreal plot twist in the climax, including psychedelic content and imagery involving graphic violence, dark humour, existentialism, and psychological horror.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: The six episodes of the web series explore and discuss basic subjects typically found in preschool, namely creativity, time, love, technology, diet, and dreams, while the television series touched on jobs, death, family, friendship, transport, and electricity. The series received widespread acclaim for its story, production design, psychological horror, humour, hidden themes, and characters, and is regarded by many as one of the greatest web series of all time. The television series was met with similar acclaim.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: Each episode revolves around three characters: a yellow childlike humanoid with blue hair and overalls, an anthropomorphic green mallard duck with a tweed jacket, and a red humanoid with a mop-like head. They have no names explicitly stated within the series but are often referred to as Yellow Guy, Duck and Red Guy respectively. The characters only ever refer to each other with pronouns, never by name. Yellow Guy's father, Roy, also occasionally appears. An episode typically goes with the three main characters meeting one or several anthropomorphic characters, who begin a musical number related to a basic concept of day-to-day life with an upbeat melody, similar to that of a "Sesame Street" segment. As each song progresses, it becomes apparent that its moral or message is nonsensical and self-contradicting, and that the "teacher" character has ulterior sinister motives. The climax of each episode typically involves a plot twist involving the addition of escalating psychological horror, which then culminates into gore and graphic violence. Later in the series, the characters begin questioning the nature of their reality and the bizarre messages of the teachers.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: Sloan and Pelling met while studying Fine Art and Animation respectively at Kingston University, where they started THIS IS IT Collective with some friends. They produced the first episode of "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" in their free time with no budget. When they started on the project they imagined making it into a series, but initially dropped the idea after finishing the first episode. After the short film gained popularity, they decided to revisit that idea. Channel 4's Random Acts commissioned the second episode. The show soon attracted mainstream commissioners; however, Sloan and Pelling turned these offers down because they "wanted to keep it fairly odd" and "have the freedom to do exactly what we wanted".


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: In May 2014, Sloan and Pelling announced that they would start a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to make four or more additional episodes, one every three months, starting in September 2014. They uploaded low-quality camera footage of the characters being taken hostage and held for ransom. A 12-year-old American boy tried to use hacked credit card information to donate £35,000 to the campaign, but he was caught and those funds were thrown out. Their Kickstarter goal of £96,000 was reached on 19 June 2014, and in total £104,935 was raised. YouTuber TomSka became an executive producer on the series after donating £5,000 to the Kickstarter.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: In January 2016, Sloan and Pelling collaborated with Lazy Oaf to release a line of clothing based on the characters and themes of the show.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: On 19 June 2017, a year after the release of episode 6, Sloan hinted towards additional work into the "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" series. A teaser trailer titled "Wakey Wakey..." was released on the channel on 13 September 2018, teasing a new television show made in a collaboration between Blink Industries, Conaco, and Super Deluxe. The 30-second video gained over two million views within 24 hours of its release and peaked at No. 1 on YouTube's Trending list. Details of the plot were released on 3 December 2018 in advance of a 2019 Sundance Film Festival screening of the pilot. The pilot episode ran at 23 minutes, and it appeared in the "Indie Episodic Program 1" alongside other short films. On 24 May 2022, the trailer was made private on the official YouTube channel.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: On 7 July 2020, it was officially announced that the series had been picked up by Channel 4. The series wrapped up filming by September 2021, and it was expected to be originally released streaming exclusively on All 4 on 12 September 2022. However, the series was delayed slightly because of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. On 16 September 2022, it was announced that the series would be releasing on 23 September 2022 on All 4 and premiered 30 September 2022 on Channel 4.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: All episodes were written by Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling, with Baker Terry co-writing each episode starting with "Time". "Time" is also co-written by Hugo Donkin.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: A long-form TV pilot was produced in 2018 with Super Deluxe, Conaco and Blink Industries. The pilot premiered at 2019 Sundance Film Festival, appearing in the "Indie Episodic Program 1" alongside other short films. The idea, which involved "current affairs", was later scrapped, and the trailer was removed from the YouTube channel. The setting, which Sloan attributed some roots to "South Park", did not have "the timelessness and claustrophobia of the originals."


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: In a faux interview, Becky and Joe jokingly described the plot as "three best friends who go on a journey to find a magic pirate ship and save the day".


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: A student writer for "Nouse" compared the appeal of the first episode to themes in Gothic literature, arguing that they are both "tapping into the same cultural fear of a violent subconscious hiding beneath the façade of normality". In "The Wesleyan Argus", another student writer called the series a "fine example of the era of esotericism" and noted that, "There is a building meta-commentary on the relationships between viewer, perception, creator, participant, and art (and perhaps death) that began with the first episode, but what that commentary is trying to say is not yet entirely clear. However, there is an absolute sense that the series is building toward a culmination."


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: The series as a whole has received widespread critical acclaim. Scott Beggs listed the original short film as number 8 on his list of the 11 best short films of 2011. Carolina Mardones listed the first episode as number 7 in her top ten short films of 2011. It was also included as part of a cinema event in Banksy's Dismaland. In April 2016, the main characters of the series were featured on the cover of the magazine "Printed Pages", along with an "interview" of the three main characters written by the magazine's editor. All six episodes of DHMIS were included in the September 2016 festival XOXO.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: Drew Grant of the "Observer" described the series as "mind-melting". Freelance writer Benjamin Hiorns observed that "it's not the subject matter that makes these films so strangely alluring, it's the strikingly imaginative set and character design and the underlying Britishness of it all". Joe Blevins of "The A.V. Club" praised the show's "sense-to-nonsense ratio" and its production values. Samantha Joy of "TenEighty" praised the sixth episode of the series, writing that it "creates a provocative end to a pretty dark narrative about content creation".


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: Like the web series, the television series has also received critical acclaim. Toussaint Egan of Polygon states, "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared could be described as the demented British half-cousin of Sesame Street.. albeit less politically charged than the latter and more focused on taking a sledgehammer to the standard of children's educational television".


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling are British graphic designers, artists and animators. Their advertising runs through commercial productions. The duo have worked as part of the THIS IS IT Collective.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: Their content consists of videos, graphic design art, animation, music, and working with real-life materials to resemble things in the real world as art. They have won multiple awards, including the 2012 SXSW Midnight Shorts Award, and the 2016 ADC Young Guns award.


title: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared

text: They have also co-written and did puppeteer work for Cartoon Network's "The Amazing World of Gumball" episode "The Puppets" (season five, episode 36). Sloan and Baker Terry provided voices of Grady, Frank, and Howdy (the three puppets featured in the episode, who trap the main characters Gumball and Darwin in their world). This episode features a song where the puppets sing about never-ending fun to Darwin with toned-down disturbing content similar to the "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" series in theme. A series of shorts based on the episode followed, titled "Waiting for Gumball", made by the same team as the original TV episode.


title: Australopithecus

text: Australopithecus (, ; ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera "Homo" (which includes modern humans), "Paranthropus", and "Kenyanthropus" evolved from some "Australopithecus" species. "Australopithecus" is a member of the subtribe Australopithecina, which sometimes also includes "Ardipithecus", though the term "australopithecine" is sometimes used to refer only to members of "Australopithecus". Species include "A. garhi", "A. africanus", "A. sediba", "A. afarensis, A. anamensis, A. bahrelghazali" and "A. deyiremeda". Debate exists as to whether some "Australopithecus" species should be reclassified into new genera, or if "Paranthropus" and "Kenyanthropus" are synonymous with "Australopithecus", in part because of the taxonomic inconsistency.


title: Australopithecus

text: The earliest known member of the genus, "A. anamensis", existed in eastern Africa around 4.2 million years ago. "Australopithecus" fossils become more widely dispersed throughout eastern and southern Africa (the Chadian "A. bahrelghazali" indicates the genus was much more widespread than the fossil record suggests), before eventually becoming pseudo-extinct 1.9 million years ago (or 1.2 to 0.6 million years ago if "Paranthropus" is included). While none of the groups normally directly assigned to this group survived, "Australopithecus" gave rise to living descendants, as the genus "Homo" emerged from an "Australopithecus" species at some time between 3 and 2 million years ago.


title: Australopithecus

text: "Australopithecus" possessed two of three duplicated genes derived from "SRGAP2" roughly 3.4 and 2.4 million years ago ("SRGAP2B" and "SRGAP2C"), the second of which contributed to the increase in number and migration of neurons in the human brain. Significant changes to the hand first appear in the fossil record of later "A. afarensis" about 3 million years ago (fingers shortened relative to thumb and changes to the joints between the index finger and the trapezium and capitate).


title: Australopithecus

text: The first "Australopithecus" specimen, the type specimen, was discovered in 1924 in a lime quarry by workers at Taung, South Africa. The specimen was studied by the Australian anatomist Raymond Dart, who was then working at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. The fossil skull was from a three-year-old bipedal primate (nicknamed Taung Child) that he named "Australopithecus africanus". The first report was published in "Nature" in February 1925. Dart realised that the fossil contained a number of humanoid features, and so he came to the conclusion that this was an early human ancestor. Later, Scottish paleontologist Robert Broom and Dart set out to search for more early hominin specimens, and several more "A. africanus" remains from various sites. Initially, anthropologists were largely hostile to the idea that these discoveries were anything but apes, though this changed during the late 1940s.


title: Australopithecus

text: In 1950, evolutionary biologist Ernst Walter Mayr said that all bipedal apes should be classified into the genus "Homo", and considered renaming "Australopithecus" to "Homo transvaalensis". However, the contrary view taken by Robinson in 1954, excluding australopiths from "Homo", became the prevalent view. The first australopithecine fossil discovered in eastern Africa was an "A. boisei" skull excavated by Mary Leakey in 1959 in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Since then, the Leakey family has continued to excavate the gorge, uncovering further evidence for australopithecines, as well as for "Homo habilis" and "Homo erectus". The scientific community took 20 more years to widely accept "Australopithecus" as a member of the human family tree.


title: Australopithecus

text: In 1997, an almost complete "Australopithecus" skeleton with skull was found in the Sterkfontein caves of Gauteng, South Africa. It is now called "Little Foot" and it is around 3.7 million years old. It was named "Australopithecus prometheus" which has since been placed within "A. africanus". Other fossil remains found in the same cave in 2008 were named "Australopithecus sediba", which lived 1.9 million years ago. "A. africanus" probably evolved into "A. sediba", which some scientists think may have evolved into "H. erectus", though this is heavily disputed.


title: Australopithecus

text: In 2003, Spanish writer Camilo José Cela Conde and evolutionary biologist Francisco J. Ayala proposed resurrecting the genus "Praeanthropus" to house "Orrorin", "A. afarensis", "A. anamensis", "A. bahrelghazali", and "A. garhi", but this genus has been largely dismissed.


title: Australopithecus

text: With the apparent emergence of the genera "Homo, Kenyanthropus", and "Paranthropus" in the genus "Australopithecus," taxonomy runs into some difficulty, as the name of species incorporates their genus. According to cladistics, groups should not be left paraphyletic, where it is kept not consisting of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Resolving this problem would cause major ramifications in the nomenclature of all descendent species. Possibilities suggested have been to rename "Homo sapiens" to "Australopithecus sapiens" (or even "Pan sapiens"), or to move some "Australopithecus" species into new genera.


title: Australopithecus

text: In 2002 and again in 2007, Cele-Conde "et al." suggested that "A. africanus" be moved to "Paranthropus". On the basis of craniodental evidence, Strait and Grine (2004) suggest that "A. anamensis" and "A. garhi" should be assigned to new genera. It is debated whether or not "A. bahrelghazali" should be considered simply a western variant of "A. afarensis" instead of a separate species.


title: Australopithecus

text: "A. anamensis" may have descended from or was closely related to "Ardipithecus ramidus". "A. anamensis" shows some similarities to both "Ar. ramidus" and "Sahelanthropus".


title: Australopithecus

text: Australopiths shared several traits with modern apes and humans, and were widespread throughout Eastern and Northern Africa by 3.5 million years ago (MYA). The earliest evidence of fundamentally bipedal hominins is a 3.6 MYA fossil trackway in Laetoli, Tanzania, which bears a remarkable similarity to those of modern humans. The footprints have generally been classified as australopith, as they are the only form of prehuman hominins known to have existed in that region at that time.


title: Australopithecus

text: According to the Chimpanzee Genome Project, the human–chimpanzee last common ancestor existed about five to six million years ago, assuming a constant rate of mutation. However, hominin species dated to earlier than the date could call this into question. "Sahelanthropus tchadensis", commonly called ""Toumai"", is about seven million years old and "Orrorin tugenensis" lived at least six million years ago. Since little is known of them, they remain controversial among scientists since the molecular clock in humans has determined that humans and chimpanzees had a genetic split at least a million years later. One theory suggests that the human and chimpanzee lineages diverged somewhat at first, then some populations interbred around one million years after diverging.


title: Australopithecus

text: The brains of most species of "Australopithecus" were roughly 35% of the size of a modern human brain with an endocranial volume average of . Although this is more than the average endocranial volume of chimpanzee brains at the earliest australopiths ("A. anamensis") appear to have been within the chimpanzee range, whereas some later australopith specimens have a larger endocranial volume than that of some early Homo fossils.


title: Australopithecus

text: Most species of "Australopithecus" were diminutive and gracile, usually standing tall. It is possible that they exhibited a considerable degree of sexual dimorphism, males being larger than females. In modern populations, males are on average a mere 15% larger than females, while in "Australopithecus", males could be up to 50% larger than females by some estimates. However, the degree of sexual dimorphism is debated due to the fragmentary nature of australopith remains. One paper finds that "A. afarensis" had a level of dimorphism close to modern humans.


title: Australopithecus

text: According to A. Zihlman, "Australopithecus" body proportions closely resemble those of bonobos ("Pan paniscus"), leading evolutionary biologist Jeremy Griffith to suggest that bonobos may be phenotypically similar to "Australopithecus". Furthermore, thermoregulatory models suggest that australopiths were fully hair covered, more like chimpanzees and bonobos, and unlike humans.


title: Australopithecus

text: The fossil record seems to indicate that "Australopithecus" is ancestral to "Homo" and modern humans. It was once assumed that large brain size had been a precursor to bipedalism, but the discovery of "Australopithecus" with a small brain but developed bipedality upset this theory. Nonetheless, it remains a matter of controversy as to how bipedalism first emerged. The advantages of bipedalism were that it left the hands free to grasp objects (e.g., carry food and young), and allowed the eyes to look over tall grasses for possible food sources or predators, but it is also argued that these advantages were not significant enough to cause the emergence of bipedalism. Earlier fossils, such as "Orrorin tugenensis", indicate bipedalism around six million years ago, around the time of the split between humans and chimpanzees indicated by genetic studies. This suggests that erect, straight-legged walking originated as an adaptation to tree-dwelling. Major changes to the pelvis and feet had already taken place before "Australopithecus". It was once thought that humans descended from a knuckle-walking ancestor, but this is not well-supported.


title: Australopithecus

text: Australopithecines have thirty-two teeth, like modern humans. Their molars were parallel, like those of great apes, and they had a slight pre-canine gap (diastema). Their canines were smaller, like modern humans, and with the teeth less interlocked than in previous hominins. In fact, in some australopithecines, the canines are shaped more like incisors. The molars of "Australopithicus" fit together in much the same way those of humans do, with low crowns and four low, rounded cusps used for crushing. They have cutting edges on the crests. However, australopiths generally evolved a larger postcanine dentition with thicker enamel. Australopiths in general had thick enamel, like "Homo", while other great apes have markedly thinner enamel. Robust australopiths wore their molar surfaces down flat, unlike the more gracile species, who kept their crests.


title: Australopithecus

text: "Australopithecus" species are thought to have eaten mainly fruit, vegetables, and tubers, and perhaps easy-to-catch animals such as small lizards. Much research has focused on a comparison between the South African species "A. africanus" and "Paranthropus robustus". Early analyses of dental microwear in these two species showed, compared to "P. robustus", "A. africanus" had fewer microwear features and more scratches as opposed to pits on its molar wear facets. Microwear patterns on the cheek teeth of "A. afarensis" and "A. anamensis" indicate that "A. afarensis" predominantly ate fruits and leaves, whereas "A. anamensis" included grasses and seeds (in addition to fruits and leaves). The thickening of enamel in australopiths may have been a response to eating more ground-bound foods such as tubers, nuts, and cereal grains with gritty dirt and other small particulates which would wear away enamel. Gracile australopiths had larger incisors, which indicates tearing food was important, perhaps eating scavenged meat. Nonetheless, the wearing patterns on the teeth support a largely herbivorous diet.


title: Australopithecus

text: In 1992, trace-element studies of the strontium/calcium ratios in robust australopith fossils suggested the possibility of animal consumption, as they did in 1994 using stable carbon isotopic analysis. In 2005, fossil animal bones with butchery marks dating to 2.6 million years old were found at the site of Gona, Ethiopia. This implies meat consumption by at least one of three species of hominins occurring around that time: "A. africanus", "A. garhi", and/or "P. aethiopicus". In 2010, fossils of butchered animal bones dated 3.4 million years old were found in Ethiopia, close to regions where australopith fossils were found.


title: Australopithecus

text: Robust australopithecines ("Paranthropus") had larger cheek teeth than gracile australopiths, possibly because robust australopithecines had more tough, fibrous plant material in their diets, whereas gracile australopiths ate more hard and brittle foods. However, such divergence in chewing adaptations may instead have been a response to fallback food availability. In leaner times, robust and gracile australopithecines may have turned to different low-quality foods (fibrous plants for the former, and hard food for the latter), but in more bountiful times, they had more variable and overlapping diets. In a 1979 preliminary microwear study of "Australopithecus" fossil teeth, anthropologist Alan Walker theorized that robust australopiths ate predominantly fruit (frugivory).


title: Australopithecus

text: A study in 2018 found non-carious cervical lesions, caused by acid erosion, on the teeth of "A. africanus", probably caused by consumption of acidic fruit.


title: Australopithecus

text: It is debated if the "Australopithecus" hand was anatomically capable of producing stone tools. "A. garhi" was associated with large mammal bones bearing evidence of processing by stone tools may indicate australopithecine tool production. Stone tools dating to roughly the same time as "A. garhi" (about 2.6 mya) were later discovered at the nearby Gona and Ledi-Geraru sites, but the appearance of "Homo" at Ledi-Geraru (LD 350-1) casts doubt on australopithecine authorship.


title: Australopithecus

text: In 2010, cut marks dating to 3.4 mya on a bovid leg were found at the Dikaka site, which were at first attributed to butchery by "A. afarensis", but because the fossil came from a sandstone unit (and were modified by abrasive sand and gravel particles during the fossilisation process), the attribution to butchery is dubious.


title: Australopithecus

text: In 2015, the Lomekwi culture was discovered at Lake Turkana dating to 3.3 mya, possibly attributed to "Kenyanthropus".


title: Australian dollar

text: The Australian dollar (sign: $; code: AUD) is the currency of Australia, including its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island. It is officially used as currency by three independent Pacific Island states: Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu. It is legal tender in Australia. Within Australia, it is almost always abbreviated with the dollar sign ($), with A$ or AU$ sometimes used to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. The $ symbol precedes the amount. It is subdivided into 100 cents.


title: Australian dollar

text: The Australian dollar was introduced on 14 February 1966 to replace the pre-decimal Australian pound, with the conversion rate of two dollars to the pound.


title: Australian dollar

text: In 2016, the Australian dollar was the fifth-most-traded currency in world foreign exchange markets, accounting for 6.9% of the world's daily share. In the same year, there were A$71.12 billion in Australian currency in circulation, or A$2,932 per person in Australia, which includes cash reserves held by the banking system and cash in circulation in other countries or held as a foreign exchange reserve.


title: Australian dollar

text: Section 51(xii) of the Constitution of Australia gives the Commonwealth (federal) Parliament the power to legislate with respect to "currency, coinage, and legal tender".


title: Australian dollar

text: The currency power must be read in conjunction with other parts of the Australian Constitution. Section 115 of the Constitution provides: "A State shall not coin money, nor make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts."


title: Australian dollar

text: Under this provision the Perth Mint, owned by the Western Australian government, still produces gold and silver coins with legal tender status, the Australian Gold Nugget and Australian Silver Kookaburra. These, however, although having the status of legal tender, are almost never circulated or used in payment of debts, and are mostly considered bullion coins. Australian coins are now produced at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra.


title: Australian dollar

text: Before the adoption of the current Australian dollar in 1966, Australia's currency was the Australian pound, which like the British pound sterling was divided into 20 shillings and each shilling was divided into 12 pence, making a pound worth 240 pence. The Australian pound was introduced in 1910 at par with the pound sterling or A£1 = UK£1 until 1931, when it was devalued to A£1 = UK£0.8 or 16 shillings UK.


title: Australian dollar

text: In 1902, a select committee of the House of Representatives, chaired by George Edwards, had recommended that Australia adopt a decimal currency with the pound divided into ten florins and the florin into 100 cents. In 1937, the Banking Royal Commission appointed by the Lyons Government had recommended that Australia adopt "a system of decimal coinage … based upon the division of the Australian pound into 1000 parts".


title: Australian dollar

text: In February 1959, Treasurer Harold Holt appointed a Decimal Currency Committee, chaired by Walter D. Scott, to examine the merits of decimalisation. The committee reported in August 1960 in favour of decimalisation and recommended that a new currency be introduced in February 1963, with the adoption to be modelled on South Africa's replacement of the South African pound with the rand worth 10 shillings or pound. The Menzies Government announced its support for decimalisation in July 1961, but delayed the process in order to give further consideration to the implementation process. In April 1963, Holt announced that a decimal currency was scheduled to be introduced in February 1966, with a base unit equal to 10 shillings, and that a Decimal Currency Board would be established to oversee the transition process.


title: Australian dollar

text: A public consultation process was held in which over 1,000 names were suggested for the new currency. In June 1963, Holt announced that the new currency would be called the "royal". This met with widespread public disapproval, and three months later it was announced that it would instead be named the "dollar".


title: Australian dollar

text: The Australian pound was replaced by the Australian dollar on 14 February 1966 with the conversion rate of A$2 = A£1. Since Australia was still part of the fixed-exchange sterling area, the exchange rate was fixed to the pound sterling at a rate of A$1 = 8 U.K. shillings (or UK£1 = A$2.50, and in turn UK£1 = US$2.80). In 1967, Australia effectively left the sterling area when the pound sterling was devalued against the US dollar from US$2.80 to US$2.40, but the Australian dollar chose to retain its peg to the US dollar at A$1 = US$1.12 (hence appreciating in value versus sterling).


title: Australian dollar

text: The Australian dollar is legal tender in its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island; and is also official currency in Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu. It was legal tender in Papua New Guinea until 31 December 1975 when it was replaced by the Papua New Guinean kina, and in Solomon Islands until 1977 when it was replaced by the Solomon Islands dollar.


title: Australian dollar

text: In 1966, coins were introduced in denominations of 1 and 2 cents (bronze); 5, 10, and 20 cents (cupronickel; 75% copper, 25% nickel); and 50 cents (silver, then cupronickel). The 50-cent coins in 80% silver were withdrawn after a year when the intrinsic value of the silver content was found to considerably exceed the face value of the coins. Aluminium bronze (92% copper, 6% aluminium, 2% nickel) 1-dollar coins were introduced in 1984, followed by aluminium bronze 2-dollar coins in 1988, to replace the banknotes of that value. 1- and 2-cent coins were discontinued in 1991 and withdrawn from circulation in 1992; since then cash transactions have been rounded to the nearest 5 cents.


title: Australian dollar

text: Australia's coins are produced by the Royal Australian Mint, which is located in the nation's capital, Canberra. Since opening in 1965, the Mint has produced more than 14 billion circulating coins, and has the capacity to produce more than two million coins per day, or more than 600 million coins per year.


title: Australian dollar

text: Current Australian 5-, 10- and 20-cent coins are identical in size to the former Australian, New Zealand, and British sixpence, shilling, and two shilling (florin) coins. Pre-decimal Australian coins remain legal tender for 10 cents per shilling. Before 2006 the old New Zealand 5-, 10- and 20-cent coins were often mistaken for Australian coins of the same value, and vice versa, and therefore circulated in both countries. The UK replaced these coins with smaller versions from 1990 to 1993, as did New Zealand in 2006. Still, some confusion occurs with the larger-denomination coins in the two countries; Australia's $1 coin is similar in size to New Zealand's $2 coin, and the New Zealand $1 coin is similar in size to Australia's $2 coin.


title: Australian dollar

text: With a mass of and a diameter of , the Australian 50-cent coin is one of the largest coins used in the world today.


title: Australian dollar

text: The Royal Australian Mint also has an international reputation for producing quality numismatic coins. It has first issued commemorative 50-cent coins in 1970, commemorating James Cook's exploration along the east coast of the Australian continent, followed in 1977 by a coin for Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, the Brisbane Commonwealth Games in 1982, and the Australian Bicentenary in 1988. Issues expanded into greater numbers in the 1990s and the 21st century, responding to collector demand. Commemorative designs have also been featured on the circulating two dollar, one dollar, and 20 cent coins.


title: Australian dollar

text: In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of decimal currency, the 2006 mint proof and uncirculated sets included one- and two-cent coins. In early 2013, Australia's first triangular coin was introduced to mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of Parliament House. The silver $5 coin is 99.9% silver, and depicts Parliament House as viewed from one of its courtyards.


title: Australian dollar

text: The first paper issues of the Australian dollar were issued in 1966. The $1, $2, $10 and $20 notes had exact equivalents in the former pound notes. The $5 note was issued in 1967, the $50 was issued in 1973 and the $100 was issued in 1984.


title: Australian dollar

text: The $1 banknote was replaced by a $1 coin in 1984, while the $2 banknote was replaced by a smaller $2 coin in 1988. Although no longer printed, all previous notes of the Australian dollar are still considered legal tender.


title: Australian dollar

text: Shortly after the changeover, substantial counterfeiting of $10 notes was detected. This provided an impetus for the Reserve Bank of Australia to develop new note technologies jointly with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, culminating in the introduction of the first polymer banknote in 1988.


title: Australian dollar

text: Australia was the first country to produce polymer banknotes, more specifically made of polypropylene polymer, which were produced by Note Printing Australia. These revolutionary polymer notes are cleaner than paper notes, are more durable and easily recyclable.


title: Australian dollar

text: The first polymer banknote was issued in 1988 as a $10 note commemorating the bicentenary of European settlement in Australia. The note depicted on one side a young male Aboriginal person in body paint, with other elements of Aboriginal culture. On the reverse side was the ship Supply from the First Fleet, with a background of Sydney Cove, as well as a group of people to illustrate the diverse backgrounds from which Australia has evolved over 200 years.


title: Australian dollar

text: A special centenary issue of the $5 note featured Sir Henry Parkes and Catherine Helen Spence in 2001. In 2015–2016 there were petitions to feature Fred Hollows on the upgraded $5 note, but failed to push through when the new note was introduced on 1 September 2016.


title: Australian dollar

text: Australia also prints polymer banknotes for a number of other countries through Note Printing Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Note Printing Australia prints polymer notes or simply supplies the polymer substrate for a growing number of other countries including Bangladesh, Brunei, Chile, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Many other countries are showing a strong interest in the new technology.


title: Australian dollar

text: On 27 September 2012, the Reserve Bank of Australia stated that it had ordered work on a project to upgrade the current banknotes. The upgraded banknotes would incorporate a number of new future proof security features


title: Australian dollar

text: Prior to 1983, Australia maintained a fixed exchange rate. The Australian pound was initially at par from 1910 with the British pound or A£1 = UK£1; from 1931 it was devalued to A£1 = UK£0.8 or 16 shillings sterling. This reflected its historical ties as well as a view about the stability in value of the British pound.


title: Australian dollar

text: From 1946 to 1971, Australia maintained a peg under the Bretton Woods system, a fixed exchange rate system that pegged the U.S. dollar to gold, but the Australian dollar was effectively pegged to sterling until 1967 at UK£1 = A£1.25 = A$2.50 = US$2.80. In 1967 Australia did not follow the pound sterling devaluation and remained fixed to the U.S. dollar at A$1 = US$1.12.


title: Australian dollar

text: With the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, Australia converted the traditional peg to a fluctuating rate against the US dollar. In September 1974, Australia valued the dollar against a basket of currencies called the trade weighted index (TWI) in an effort to reduce the fluctuations associated with its tie to the US dollar. The daily TWI valuation was changed in November 1976 to a periodically adjusted valuation.


title: Australian dollar

text: The highest valuation of the Australian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar was during the period of the peg to the U.S. dollar. On 9 September 1973, the peg was adjusted to US$1.4875, the fluctuation limits being changed to US$1.485–US$1.490; on both 7 December 1973 and 10 December 1973, the noon buying rate in New York City for cable transfers payable in foreign currencies reached its highest point of 1.4885 U.S. dollars to one dollar.


title: Australian dollar

text: In December 1983, the Australian Labor government led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating floated the dollar, with the exchange rate reflecting the balance of payments as well as supply and demand on international money markets. The decision was made on 8 December 1983 and announced on 9 December 1983.


title: Australian dollar

text: In the two decades that followed, its highest value relative to the US dollar was $0.881 in December 1988. The lowest ever value of the dollar after it was floated was 47.75 US cents in April 2001. It returned to above 96 US cents in June 2008, and reached 98.49 later that year. Although the value of the dollar fell significantly from this high towards the end of 2008, it gradually recovered in 2009 to 94 US cents.


title: Australian dollar

text: On 15 October 2010, the dollar reached parity with the US dollar for the first time since becoming a freely traded currency, trading above US$1 for a few seconds. The currency then traded above parity for a sustained period of several days in November, and fluctuated around that mark into 2011. On 27 July 2011, the dollar hit a record high since floating, at $1.1080 against the US dollar. Some commentators speculated that its high value that year was related to Europe's sovereign debt crisis, and Australia's strong ties with material importers in Asia and in particular China.


title: Australian dollar

text: Since the end of the China's large-scale purchases of Australian commodities in 2013, however, the Australian dollar's value versus the US dollar has since plunged to $0.88 as of end-2013, and to as low as $0.57 in March 2020. As of 2021, it has traded at a range of $0.71 to $0.80.


title: Australian dollar

text: In 2016, the Australian dollar was the fifth most traded currency in world foreign exchange markets, accounting for 6.9% of the world's daily share (down from 8.6% in 2013) behind the United States dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the pound sterling.


title: Australian dollar

text: The Australian dollar is popular with currency traders, because of the comparatively high interest rates in Australia, the relative freedom of the foreign exchange market from government intervention, the general stability of Australia's economy and political system, and the prevailing view that the Australian dollar offers diversification benefits in a portfolio containing the major world currencies, especially because of its greater exposure to Asian economies and the commodities cycle.


title: Australian dollar

text: Economists posit that commodity prices are the dominant driver of the Australian dollar, and this means changes in exchange rates of the Australian dollar occur in ways opposite to many other currencies. For decades, Australia's balance of trade has depended primarily upon commodity exports such as minerals and agricultural products. This means the Australian dollar varies significantly during the business cycle, rallying during global booms as Australia exports raw materials, and falling during recessions as mineral prices slump or when domestic spending overshadows the export earnings outlook. This movement is in the opposite direction to other reserve currencies, which tend to be stronger during market slumps as traders move value from falling stocks into cash.


title: Australian dollar

text: The Australian dollar is a reserve currency and one of the most traded currencies in the world. Other factors in its popularity include a relative lack of central bank intervention, and general stability of the Australian economy and government. In January 2011 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Alexey Ulyukaev announced that the Central Bank of Russia would begin keeping Australian dollar reserves.


title: Australian dollar

text: Australian notes are legal tender throughout Australia by virtue of the "Reserve Bank Act 1959", s.36(1), without an amount limit. Part IV of the "Currency Act 1965" similarly provides that Australian coins intended for general circulation are also legal tender, but only for the following amounts:


title: Australian dollar

text: Although the "Reserve Bank Act 1959" and the "Currency Act 1965" establishes that Australian banknotes and coins have legal tender status, Australian banknotes and coins do not necessarily have to be used in transactions and refusal to accept payment in legal tender is not unlawful. A provider of goods or services may specify the payment method before a "contract" is entered into, such as in the case of online transactions. If a provider of goods or services specifies another means of payment prior to the contract, then there is usually no obligation for legal tender to be accepted as payment. This is the case even when an existing debt is involved. However, refusal to accept legal tender in payment of an existing debt, where no other means of payment/settlement has been specified in advance, conceivably may have legal consequences.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Mark Rutte (; born 14 February 1967) is a Dutch politician who has served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 2010 and Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) since 2006.


title: Mark Rutte

text: After a business career working for Unilever, Rutte entered politics in 2002 on his appointment as State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), after a coalition agreement guaranteed the VVD several seats in his cabinet. Rutte was subsequently elected to the House of Representatives at the 2003 election. In 2004, he became State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science in the second Balkenende cabinet. After municipal elections in 2006 saw heavy losses for the VVD, the party's leader, Jozias van Aartsen, announced his resignation. Rutte stood in the subsequent leadership election; he was elected on 31 May, resigning from his cabinet post shortly afterwards. Rutte led the VVD into the 2006 election; although the VVD lost six seats, it still became the second-largest opposition party.


title: Mark Rutte

text: At the 2010 election, Rutte led the VVD to win the highest number of votes cast, resulting in it becoming the largest party in the House of Representatives for the first time in the party's history. After lengthy coalition negotiations, Rutte was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Netherlands on 14 October 2010. He was the first liberal to be appointed Prime Minister in 92 years, as well as the second-youngest Prime Minister in Dutch history.


title: Mark Rutte

text: An impasse on budget negotiations led to his government's early collapse in April 2012, but the subsequent election saw the VVD win its highest number of seats ever, with Rutte returning as Prime Minister to lead to a coalition between the VVD and the Labour Party (PvdA). This cabinet became the first since 1998 to see out a full four-year term. Although at the 2017 election the VVD lost seats, it remained the largest party ahead of the Party for Freedom (PVV). After a record-length formation period, Rutte was appointed to lead to a new coalition between the VVD, CDA, Democrats 66 (D66) and Christian Union (CU). He was sworn in for his third term as Prime Minister on 26 October 2017.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte and his cabinet offered their resignation to the King on 15 January 2021 in response to a scandal relating to false allegations of child welfare fraud by the Dutch tax authorities. Rutte remained in office through the 2021 election, leading the VVD to finish first for the fourth consecutive election. After another record-length formation period, he began his fourth term as Prime Minister on 10 January 2022. Due to his ability to come out of political scandals with his reputation undamaged, Rutte has been referred to as "Teflon Mark". On 2 August 2022, he became the longest-serving Prime Minister in Dutch history, overtaking Ruud Lubbers (1982–1994).


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte was born in The Hague, in the province of South Holland, in a Dutch Reformed family. He is the youngest child of Izaäk Rutte (5 October 1909 – 22 April 1988), a merchant, and his second wife, Hermina Cornelia Dilling (13 November 1923 – 13 May 2020), a secretary. Izaäk Rutte worked for a trading company; first as an importer in the Dutch East Indies, later as a director in the Netherlands. His second wife was a sister of his first wife, Petronella Hermanna Dilling (17 March 1910 – 20 July 1945), who died while she and he were interned together in Tjideng, a prisoner of war camp in Batavia, now Jakarta, during World War II. Rutte has seven siblings as a result of his father's two marriages. One of his elder brothers died from AIDS in the 1980s. Rutte later described the deaths of his brother and later his father as events that changed the course of his life.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte attended the Maerlant Lyceum from 1979 until 1985, specialising in the arts. Although Rutte's original ambition was to attend a conservatory and become a concert pianist, he went to study history at Leiden University instead, where he obtained an MA degree in 1992. Rutte combined his studies with a position on the board of the Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the youth organisation of the VVD, of which he was the chair from 1988 to 1991.


title: Mark Rutte

text: After his studies, Rutte entered the business world, working as a manager for Unilever (and its food subsidiary Calvé). Until 1997, Rutte was part of the human resource department of Unilever, and played a leading role in several reorganisations. Between 1997 and 2000, Rutte was staff manager for Van den Bergh Nederland, a subsidiary of Unilever's. In 2000, Rutte became a member of the Corporate Human Resources Group, and in 2002, he became human resource manager for IgloMora Groep, another subsidiary of Unilever's.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Between 1993 and 1997, Rutte was a member of the national board of the VVD. Rutte also served as a member of the VVD candidate committee for the general election of 2002. Rutte was elected as Member of Parliament in 2003.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte served as State Secretary at the Social Affairs and Employment Ministry from 22 July 2002 to 17 June 2004 in the First and Second Balkenende cabinets. Rutte was responsible for fields including "bijstand" (municipal welfare) and "arbeidsomstandigheden" (Occupational safety and health). After the 2003 elections Rutte was briefly also a member of the House of Representatives, from 30 January to 27 May 2003.


title: Mark Rutte

text: In 2003, as State Secretary, Rutte advised municipalities to check, exceptionally, Somali residents for social assistance fraud, after some Somalis working in England were also found to receive social assistance benefits in the Netherlands. A Somali man entitled to benefits was stopped by social investigators and checked for fraud on the basis of his external characteristics, after which he refused the investigators access to his home. The Municipal Executive (College van burgemeester en wethouders) of Haarlem decided to withdraw the right of the man to social benefits. He disagreed with this and his appeal was upheld by the administrative judge. The court ruled that "an investigation aimed exclusively at persons of Somali descent is discriminatory" and contrary to the Constitution because this distinction is "discrimination based on race". Rutte rejected the criticism and stated that a change in the law would then be necessary to be able to combat targeted fraud.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte later served as State Secretary for Higher Education and Science, within the Education, Culture and Science Ministry, replacing Annette Nijs, from 17 June 2004 to 27 June 2006, in the Second Balkenende cabinet. In office, Rutte showed particular interest in making the Dutch higher education system more competitive internationally, by trying to make it more market oriented (improving the position of students as consumers in the market for education). Rutte would have been succeeded by former The Hague alderman Bruno Bruins. Before Bruins could be sworn into office, the second Balkenende cabinet fell. In the subsequently formed Third Balkenende cabinet Bruins succeeded Rutte as State secretary.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte resigned from his position in government in June 2006 to return to the House of Representatives, and he soon became the parliamentary leader of the VVD. Rutte became an important figure within the VVD leadership. Rutte was campaign manager for the 2006 municipal elections.


title: Mark Rutte

text: After the resignation of Jozias van Aartsen, the VVD having lost in the 2006 Dutch municipal election, the party held an internal election for lijsttrekker, in which Rutte competed against Rita Verdonk and Jelleke Veenendaal. On 31 May 2006, it was announced that Mark Rutte would be the next "lijsttrekker" of the VVD. He was elected by 51.5% of party members. Rutte's candidacy was backed by the VVD leadership, including the party board, and many prominent politicians such as Frank de Grave, former minister of Defence, Ivo Opstelten, the mayor of Rotterdam and Ed Nijpels, the Queen's Commissioner of Friesland. The Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, the VVD's youth wing, of which he had been chair, also backed him. During the elections he promised "to make the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy a party for everyone and not just of the elite". His youthful appearance has been likened to the successful former leader of the Labour Party, Wouter Bos.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte said that the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party was a group that "the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy could do business with". He had also stated that with the social security ideas of the Labour Party, which he called too socialist, it was unlikely that the VVD would cooperate or form a coalition after the elections.


title: Mark Rutte

text: For the 2006 general election, the VVD campaign with Rutte as leader did not get off to a good start; he received criticism from within his own party. Rutte was said to be overshadowed by his own party members Rita Verdonk and Gerrit Zalm, as well as being unable to penetrate between Wouter Bos and Jan Peter Balkenende, who were generally seen as the prime candidates to become the next Prime Minister. On 27 November, it became known that Rita Verdonk managed to obtain more votes than Mark Rutte; he obtained 553,200 votes against Verdonk's 620,555. After repeated criticisms by Verdonk on VVD policy, Rutte expelled her from the party's parliamentary faction on 13 September 2007.


title: Mark Rutte

text: In the 2010 general election, Rutte was once again the "lijsttrekker" for the VVD. It won 31 seats to become the largest party in the House of Representatives for the first time ever. A long period of negotiations followed, with several personalities succeeding each other, being appointed by Queen Beatrix in order to find out what coalition could be formed. Efforts to form a coalition between the VVD, CDA and PvdA failed. Instead, the only possibility appeared to be a centre-right coalition of liberals and Christian Democrats (CDA), with the outside support of the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders.


title: Mark Rutte

text: After securing support for a coalition between the VVD and CDA, Rutte was appointed as formateur on 8 October 2010; Rutte announced his prospective cabinet, including Maxime Verhagen from the CDA as Deputy Prime Minister. On 14 October, Queen Beatrix formally invited Rutte to form a government, and later that day, Rutte presented his first cabinet to Parliament. The government was confirmed in office by a majority of one, and Rutte was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, becoming the first Liberal to serve in the role since Pieter Cort van der Linden in 1918. He also became the second-youngest Prime Minister in Dutch history, after Ruud Lubbers.


title: Mark Rutte

text: After the victory at the 2011 provincial elections, the VVD secured its status as the lead party within the government. In March 2012, seeking to comply with European Union requirements to reduce the nation's deficit, Rutte began talks with his coalition partners on a budget which would cut 16 billion euros of spending. However, PVV leader Geert Wilders withdrew his party's informal support from the government on 21 April, stating that the proposed budget would hurt economic growth. This led to the early collapse of the government, and Rutte submitted his resignation to Queen Beatrix on the afternoon of 23 April. His government had lasted for 558 days, making it one of the shortest Dutch cabinets since World War II.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Ahead of the 2012 general election, Rutte was named the VVD's lijsttrekker for the third time. At the election in September, the VVD won an additional 10 seats, remaining the largest party in the House of Representatives; the CDA and PVV saw their number of seats fall significantly. The VVD quickly negotiated a coalition agreement with the Labour Party, and on 5 November 2012, the Second Rutte cabinet was confirmed by a vote in Parliament, seeing Rutte returned as Prime Minister of a VVD-PvdA coalition government.


title: Mark Rutte

text: In 2014, The Hague held a Group of Seven special meeting after the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in Ukraine with 193 Dutch nationals aboard. During the municipal elections of 2014, the VVD finished third behind local parties and the CDA; at the European Parliament election the same year, it finished fourth. At the 2015 Dutch provincial elections, however, the VVD remained the largest party in the province's legislatures with about 15% of the vote, but lost 23 seats in the States-Provincial.


title: Mark Rutte

text: In April 2016, Rutte was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President of the World Bank Group Jim Yong Kim to the High-Level Panel on Water. Co-chaired by Mauritius President Ameenah Gurib and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, the joint United Nations-World Bank Group panel was set up to accelerate the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6). That month also saw the 2016 Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum, which resulted in a rejection. In November 2016 the House of Representatives approved by 132 votes against 18 a ban on the Islamic burqa in some public spaces including schools and hospitals, a bill supported by the VVD.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte's second cabinet completed its full four-year term without collapsing or losing a vote of no confidence, becoming the first cabinet to do so since the First Kok cabinet from 1994 to 1998.


title: Mark Rutte

text: The VVD went into the 2017 general election with a small lead over the PVV in most opinion polls. Rutte was judged to have managed the 2017 Dutch–Turkish diplomatic incident well according to similar polling. While the VVD lost 8 seats in the general election, the PvdA lost 29, and these seats were split between a number of other parties, leaving the VVD the largest party in parliament for the third successive election. After holding coalition discussions, Rutte negotiated a grand coalition with the CDA, D66 and CU; he presented his third cabinet on 26 October 2017, and was sworn in as Prime Minister for a third term. The 225 days between the general election and the installation of the government was the longest such period in Dutch history.


title: Mark Rutte

text: The coalition agreement's plan to abolish the 15% dividend tax (providing the state €1.4 billion per year) proved highly unpopular, as it had not been mentioned in any party's program, and it later appeared that major Dutch companies like Shell and Unilever had secretly been lobbying for that measure.


title: Mark Rutte

text: In July 2018, Rutte became a topic in international news because of what was considered "typical Dutch bluntness", by interrupting and explicitly contradicting the American president Donald Trump during a meeting with the press at the Oval Office in the White House.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte's third government provided materials to the Levant Front rebel group in Syria. In September 2018, the Dutch public prosecution department declared the Levant Front to be a "criminal organisation of terrorist intent", describing it as a "salafist and jihadistic" group that "strives for the setting up of the caliphate".


title: Mark Rutte

text: On 21 March 2018, the Dutch Intelligence and Security Services Act referendum was held. It resulted in a rejection. At the 2019 provincial elections, Rutte's VVD suffered a blow following the victory of right-wing populist newcomer Forum for Democracy (FvD).


title: Mark Rutte

text: During the negotiations for the COVID-19 recovery fund in the European Union, Rutte is considered the unofficial leader of the Frugal Four, demanding loans instead of grants and more conditions on them.


title: Mark Rutte

text: During a parliamentary debate on 9 September 2020, Rutte suggested that the EU could be dissolved and re-formed without Poland and Hungary, as he perceives these countries' governments to be dismantling the rule of law.


title: Mark Rutte

text: On 15 January 2021, the third Rutte cabinet collectively resigned after publications of research around the childcare subsidies scandal in the Netherlands. Rutte offered his resignation to the King, accepting responsibility for the scandal.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Following the 2021 Dutch general election, Rutte's VVD party held 34 of 150 seats and was expected to form a new coalition government. After remaining caretaker Prime Minister for the duration of the longest formation process in Dutch history, on 15 December 2021 he presented a coalition agreement with D66, CDA and CU, the same combination as his previous government.


title: Mark Rutte

text: Rutte is single. He is a member of the Dutch Protestant Church. As of 2021, Rutte still teaches social studies for two hours a week at the Johan de Witt College, a secondary school in The Hague. Rutte is known to be a big fan of the writing of Robert Caro, especially his 1974 book about Robert Moses, "The Power Broker". He drives an old Saab.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Sara Patricia Pascoe (born 22 May 1981) is an English actress, comedian and writer. She has appeared on television programmes including "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown" for Channel 4, "QI" for BBC and "Taskmaster" for the digital channel Dave.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Pascoe was born to Gail ("née" Newmarch) and Derek Pascoe, a musician. Her great-grandmother was Rosa Newmarch, a poet and writer on music.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Born in Dagenham, London, Pascoe was brought up in nearby Romford. Her parents divorced when she was young and she was brought up by her mother. She attended Eastbury Comprehensive School in Barking. She later attended Gaynes School in Upminster. Aged 16, Pascoe had an abortion which was detailed in her memoir, "Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body."


title: Sara Pascoe

text: For a short while, Pascoe aspired to study philosophy at the University of Cambridge, motivated by both her enjoyment of the novel "Sophie's World" and her desire to join Footlights, the university's dramatic club. However, she read English at the University of Sussex, where she met and became friends with Cariad Lloyd. After graduation she worked as an actor and supplemented her income with temporary work, but found work "hard to come by" and declared herself bankrupt.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Pascoe has appeared in many television programmes and panel shows, including "Stand Up for the Week", "The Thick of It", "Mock the Week", "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret", "Campus", "Being Human", "Twenty Twelve", "QI", "Have I Got News For You", "Would I Lie to You", "Hypothetical", and "W1A" as well as all-female sketch show "Girl Friday" (part of Channel 4's "Comedy Showcase"), which she co-wrote.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Pascoe began performing stand up comedy in 2007. In the following year she was a runner-up in the Funny Women award in 2008 with Rachel Stubbings. Katherine Ryan won the award that year.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In August 2010, she performed her first show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, "Sara Pascoe Vs Her Ego".


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In 2012, she appeared in episode 11 of the "Comedian's Comedian Podcast" hosted by Stuart Goldsmith, and in "Live at the Apollo". She appeared on the BBC TV panel show "QI" in 2013.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In 2014, she performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and toured the UK for the first time with the show "Sara Pascoe Vs History". The show was nominated for the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award 2014 for Best Comedy Show. In October 2014, she appeared in "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" and stood in line at the identity parade round as a former dancer and back-up singer for the entertainer (and Robbie Williams's father) Pete Conway. Also that month, she appeared on the topical panel quiz "Have I Got News for You" as a panellist and in one of the sketches of the Channel 4 charity night "Stand Up to Cancer".


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In 2015, she appeared as a panellist on two Radio 4 programmes, the science discussion programme "The Infinite Monkey Cage" in February, and the comedy quiz programme "The Unbelievable Truth" in September.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In 2016, along with numerous other celebrities, Pascoe toured the UK to support Jeremy Corbyn's bid to become prime minister.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: She has written two books. The first, "Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body", was published in 2016. Her second book, "Sex Power Money", was published in 2019, which explores (mostly heterosexual) sexual relations, with particular focuses on male sexuality and on sex work. It is informed by evolutionary biology and social research, and by her own experiences and feelings. She also hosts a related podcast of the same name, in which she interviews people who have experience around sex work, stripping and porn.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In 2016, she went on tour again with the show "Animal". She participated in series 3 of the comedy challenge show, "Taskmaster", which was broadcast on Dave in October and November 2016.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: She has appeared in all three of Frankie Boyle's "Autopsy" BBC programmes (2014–2016), discussing political issues, and from 2017 until 2020 has been a regular guest on his topical series "Frankie Boyle's New World Order". She also performed a half-hour stand-up set in episode 1 of series 2 of "Live from the BBC" in 2017.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: On 27 October 2017, she appeared in an episode of the British travel documentary series "Travel Man" on Channel 4. In February 2018, she started a BBC Radio 4 series called "Modern Monkey".


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In April 2018, she appeared as a panellist in two episodes of the BBC Radio 4 panel show "Just A Minute". In May 2018, she starred in a BBC comedy short entitled "Sara Pascoe vs Monogamy".


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In 2019 she was announced as the host of Dave series "Comedians Giving Lectures", in which comedians deliver a stand-up presentation in the guise of a lecture. In February 2020, Dave announced that they were commissioning two further series, with series 2 scheduled to be filmed and broadcast in 2020 and series 3 in 2021. However, the Covid-19 pandemic caused the project to be delayed, and both series were filmed at the National Gallery in London in summer 2021. Series 2 was broadcast in November 2021 and Series 3 in April 2022.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In April 2019, a live recording of Pascoe's "LadsLadsLads" tour at the London Palladium was shown on BBC Two.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In November 2020 she hosted "An Evening With Yuval Noah Harari", a livestream book launch held by How to Academy and Penguin Books.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Pascoe's six-part comedy series "Out of Her Mind" premiered on BBC Two in October 2020. Exploring "heartbreak, family and how to survive them", the series is loosely based on her own life, with Pascoe playing a version of herself. Co-stars include Juliet Stevenson and Cariad Lloyd.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Pascoe's three-part BBC Two series called "Last Woman on Earth with Sara Pascoe" premiered on 27 December 2020. In May 2022, the series was recommissioned for a second series.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: On 16 September 2021, it was announced that Pascoe would host the eighth series of "The Great British Sewing Bee", replacing Joe Lycett.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: In 2017, Pascoe was one of four contestants on series 7, episode 8 of "The Celebrity Chase", progressing to the episode's Final Chase.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Pascoe was one of the four competitors on a Christmas edition of " The Great British Sewing Bee" broadcast on Boxing Day 2020 on BBC 1. Her fellow competitors were Denise Van Outen, Shirley Ballas and Ranj Singh.


title: Sara Pascoe

text: Pascoe lives in London. From 2013 to late 2016, she dated the comedian John Robins. Her reflections on that relationship and its aftermath were the basis of her 2017 show "LadsLadsLads" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2020, she married fellow comedian Steen Raskopoulos. In November 2021, she announced that she was pregnant. In February 2022, Pascoe gave birth to her first child, announcing it on Valentine's Day.


title: Joanna Jędrzejczyk

text: Joanna Jędrzejczyk (; born August 18, 1987) is a Polish former professional mixed martial artist and Muay Thai kickboxer. She has been called the greatest female strawweight mixed martial artist of all time, including by Daniel Cormier, who credited her with putting the weight class "on the map". Jędrzejczyk holds several records in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where she is a former UFC Women's Strawweight Champion, including most successful strawweight title defenses (5), most consecutive wins at strawweight (8), and is the first Polish champion and first female European champion.


title: Joanna Jędrzejczyk

text: After discovering Muay Thai as a teenager, Jędrzejczyk went on to earn six medals (five gold) at the IFMA World Muaythai Championships and held several different championship titles with promotions such as World Kickboxing Network and World Muaythai Council. Switching to mixed martial arts (MMA) in May 2012, Jędrzejczyk went undefeated in her first nine fights and won the UFC Women's Strawweight Championship in March 2015 after defeating Carla Esparza at UFC 185. Over the next two years, she continued her undefeated streak with five successful title defenses against opponents such as Jessica Penne, Cláudia Gadelha, and Jéssica Andrade. Jędrzejczyk suffered the first loss of her MMA career when she lost the championship to Rose Namajunas in November 2017. After losing a rematch with Namajunas, Jędrzejczyk defeated Tecia Torres before briefly returning to flyweight in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the vacant UFC Women's Flyweight Championship against Valentina Shevchenko in December 2018. Following a strawweight win over Michelle Waterson, Jędrzejczyk faced new strawweight champion Zhang Weili at UFC 248 in March 2020. Jędrzejczyk lost by split decision in what was called the greatest fight in women's MMA history by many pundits. Following a two-year layoff, Jędrzejczyk retired from mixed martial arts in June 2022 after losing a rematch against Zhang at UFC 275.


title: Joanna Jędrzejczyk

text: Jędrzejczyk discovered Muay Thai when she was 16, while taking up fitness, which eventually led her to compete in national and European tournaments. Jędrzejczyk competed in Muay Thai and kickboxing for 10 years, winning over 60 matches. Her amateur Muay Thai accomplishments include six IFMA world medals (five gold, one silver) and four IFMA European championships with a record of 37 wins and 3 losses. During her professional career Jędrzejczyk won five world titles including the WKN World Championship, J Girls Championship, WBKF Championship, WKF European Championship, and the WMC Championship. Her professional record is 27–3.