title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: After its 1970s renovation, Yankee Stadium hosted only one championship fight. On September 28, 1976, a declining Muhammad Ali defended his heavyweight crown against Ken Norton. To that point, Norton was one of only two boxers who had beaten Ali (in 1973); this was their third and final, meeting. Norton led for most of the fight, but Ali improved in the later rounds to win by unanimous decision.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: The first college football game played in Yankee Stadium was a 3-0 Syracuse victory over Pittsburgh on October 20, 1923. When an ill Ruth could not lead the Yankees to the World Series in 1925, college football took center stage at Yankee Stadium that fall. The fiercely competitive Notre Dame–Army game moved to Yankee Stadium, where it remained until 1947. In the 1928 game, with the score 0–0 at halftime, legendary Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne gave his "win one for the Gipper" speech (with reference to All-American halfback George Gipp, who died in 1920); Notre Dame went on to defeat Army, 12–6. The 1929 game between the two teams had the highest attendance in the series at 79,408. The 1946 Army vs. Notre Dame football game at Yankee Stadium is regarded as one of the 20th century college football Games of the Century.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: Notre Dame played 24 games at Yankee Stadium, going 15–6–3. Army played 38, compiling a 17–17–4 record (including the best-attended game, on December 1, 1928, when Army lost to Stanford 26–0 before 86,000 fans). New York University played more games there than any other school, 96, using it as a secondary home field from 1923 to 1948, with a record of 52–40–4. Nearby Fordham University played 19 games there, going 13–5–1.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: Eight college football games were played at Yankee Stadium on Thanksgiving Day, the first seven by New York University. Perhaps, the most famous Thanksgiving Day game was the first. Oregon State Agricultural College (now Oregon State) was the first West Coast team to travel across the country and play an East Coast team. 8–1 NYU was a 3–1 favorite to beat 5–3 OSAC, but Oregon State upset the hometown favorites 25–13. Will Rogers lamented what the "Oregon apple knockers" had done to his "city slickers" in a column after the game. After the 1928 game, NYU beat Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1931 and 1932, defeated Fordham in 1936, lost to Carnegie Tech in 1929 and lost to Fordham in 1934 and 1935. In the eighth game, in 1963, Syracuse beat Notre Dame, 14–7. This was a rematch following the teams' controversial 1961 game won by Notre Dame, 17–15.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: The Gotham Bowl was scheduled to premiere at Yankee Stadium in 1960, but was canceled when no opponent could be found for Oregon State University. The 1961 game was moved to the Polo Grounds, and when just 6,166 people came to Yankee Stadium for the 1962 game, in which the University of Nebraska defeated the University of Miami, 36–34, the Gotham Bowl was never played again. The Miami-Nebraska game remains the only college bowl ever played at the stadium.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: In 1969, Notre Dame and Army reprised their long series at the Stadium (1925–1946 except 1930) with one final game, which the Fighting Irish won, 45–0. It was the final game at the stadium for either team.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: Starting in 1971, the Stadium hosted the Whitney M. Young Urban League Classic, a game between historically black colleges, often featuring Grambling State University of Louisiana, coached by Eddie Robinson, the first college coach to win 400 games. The Classic helped to spread the fame of Grambling and other similar schools. Yankee Stadium hosted its final Classic during the 1987 season, also the last time a football game was played there. Grambling lost to Central State University of Ohio, 37–21.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: The Classic has been held at Giants Stadium and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey's Meadowlands Sports Complex ever since, though the Yankees remain a supporter of the event.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: In 1926, after negotiations failed with the fledgling NFL and the Chicago Bears, Red Grange and his agent C.C. Pyle formed the first American Football League and fielded a team called the New York Yankees based in Yankee Stadium. The league failed after only one year, but the team continued as a member of the NFL for two seasons before ceasing operations. A second New York Yankees football team, not related to the first, split its home games between Yankee Stadium and Downing Stadium as it competed in the second AFL in 1936 and 1937. A third AFL New York Yankees took the field in 1940 and became the New York Americans in 1941.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: The New York Yankees of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) played their home games at Yankee Stadium from 1946 to 1949. The 1947 AAFC championship game was held at Yankee Stadium. Following the 1949 season, the NFL New York Bulldogs acquired many of the players from the 1949 Yankees. Using the name the New York Yanks they played two seasons at Yankee Stadium, 1950 and 1951.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: The New York Giants of the NFL played their home games at Yankee Stadium from 1956 to 1973. On December 28, 1958, Yankee Stadium hosted the 1958 NFL championship game, frequently called "The Greatest Game Ever Played". The Baltimore Colts tied the Giants, 17–17, on a field goal with seven seconds left. Led by quarterback Johnny Unitas, the Colts won in overtime, 23–17. The game's dramatic ending is often cited as elevating professional football to one of the United States' major sports. The game was one of three NFL championships games that were played at Yankee Stadium; the 1956 and 1962 championship games were also played there.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: In addition to the NFL championship games, one of the most notable plays in NFL history, sometimes referred to simply as The Hit, occurred at Yankee Stadium on November 20, 1960. In a game that day, the Philadelphia Eagles' Chuck Bednarik forcefully tackled the Giants' Frank Gifford in the last minute of a close game, forcing a fumble recovered by the Eagles that clinched the victory for Philadelphia and ultimately helped the Eagles dethrone the two-time defending champion Giants as NFL Eastern Conference champions. The hit left Gifford with a concussion and forced his temporary retirement from football for the remainder of the 1960 season and all of the 1961 season.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: The Giants played their first two home games at Yankee Stadium in 1973, concluding their tenancy on September 23 with a 23–23 tie against the Philadelphia Eagles. In October, they moved to the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut, for the rest of the season.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: In 1976, after the renovations, the New York Jets hosted 3 preseason games (Giants, Raiders, and Redskins) at Yankee Stadium.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: Celtic F.C. defeated New York Yankees in the first major soccer game to be played at the Stadium on June 28, 1931. In the coming three decades, a number of games between the Maccabbees - Jewish All-stars from Palestine and American all-stars were played. European club exhibitions first came in 1952, when on June 14, Liverpool drew 1–1 with Grasshopper Club Zürich. The next day, Tottenham Hotspur thrashed Manchester United 7–1, just a year after United had taken over for Spurs as champions of England. The following year, on June 8, the English national team defeated the U.S. national team 6–3, in a rematch of the Miracle on Grass match at the 1950 World Cup.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: Major international clubs returned to the Stadium in 1966, with Pele's Santos of Brazil beating Inter Milan 4–1 on June 5. In 1967, C.A. Cerro of Uruguay played in the United Soccer Association during the summer months under the title "New York Skyliners". They played major games against Hibernian F.C. of Scotland, renamed "Toronto City", Cagliari F.C. of Italy, renamed "Chicago Mustangs" and Bangu Atlético Clube of Brazil, renamed "Houston Stars". During the same year, the stadium also became home to the New York Generals of the National Professional Soccer League. Upon the 1968 merger of the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League, a new league was created known as the North American Soccer League, where the Generals remained as the New York team. In 1968, in addition to league competition, the Generals took on Santos, winning 5–3 and Real Madrid, losing 4–1. That year, Santos also played and beat S.S.C. Napoli of Italy 4–2 at the Stadium, along with S.L. Benfica of Portugal, with whom they drew 3–3. The next year, four major international club games were played at the Stadium: Barcelona beat Juventus 3–2 on May 30, Inter Milan beat Sparta Prague 4–0 on June 27 and A.C. Milan defeated Panathinaikos 4–0 also on June 27. Finally, on June 29, Yankee Stadium hosted its own version of the Derby della Madonnina, with A.C. Milan defeating Inter 6–4. The latter three games that year were all part of a three-day "United States Cup of Champions".


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: On September 15, 1968, the U.S. national soccer team played an international friendly against the Israel national team at the Stadium. It was the first game for the U.S. in 15 months and 10,118 saw Israel and the U.S. draw 3-3.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: In 1971 and 1976, the New York Cosmos of the NASL played their home games at Yankee Stadium. During the 1971 season, they also hosted Hearts from Scotland, and Apollon Kalamarias of Greece. In 1976 the team's star attraction was Pelé. The Brazil native, known as "The King of Football", was considered the best player in the world. Also that year, in Yankee Stadium's final international match on May 28, England defeated Italy 3–2 as part of the Bicentennial Cup Tournament. Finally, on August 10, 1976, the last soccer game was played at Yankee Stadium, with the Cosmos thrashing the Miami Toros 8–2. The Cosmos moved to Giants Stadium for the 1977 season.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: National Hockey League (NHL) executives inquired about the possibility of using Yankee Stadium for an outdoor ice hockey match featuring the New York Rangers in the 2008–09 season after the successful reception of both the 2003 Heritage Classic and the 2008 NHL Winter Classic outdoor games. If approved, it would have been the final sporting event at the current stadium. The NHL, however, decided to hold the second Winter Classic in Chicago, at Wrigley Field. The new Yankee Stadium would end up hosting two outdoor NHL games in 2014.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: The first concert ever held there was an ensemble R&B show on June 21, 1969, put together by the Isley Brothers; the first rock concert held at the stadium was on June 22, 1990, by Billy Joel. It was also the site of two dates of U2's Zoo TV Tour in 1992. During one song, Bono paid tribute to the show's setting with the line "I dreamed I saw Joe DiMaggio/Dancing with Marilyn Monroe". Pink Floyd also performed two sold-out shows at this venue on their final North American tour in 1994 in support of their album "The Division Bell".


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: Beginning in 1950, the stadium began holding religious conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses. The 1958 New York International Convention of Jehovah's Witnesses attracted 253,922 people from all over the world, although many were at the nearby Polo Grounds, the Yankee Stadium total of 123,707 in a single day remains the biggest attendance ever for any event at Yankee Stadium and is commemorated by a historical marker in the sidewalk nearby. These conventions would continue on until the late 1980s. When room ran out in the stands, the ladies were asked to remove their heels, and people were brought in to sit in the outfield. There was also a makeshift camp nearby where the program was broadcast for hundreds others to listen to.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: On July 20, 1957, evangelist Billy Graham attracted a crowd of 100,000 to a televised "crusade" at Yankee Stadium. A "New York Times" article of the following day described the turnout as "the largest crowd in stadium history" to that time.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: Cardinal Francis Spellman (1957), Pope Paul VI (1965), Pope John Paul II (1969 as a cardinal, 1979 as pope) and Pope Benedict XVI (2008) all celebrated Mass at the ballpark, along with numerous clergy. On June 21, 1990, a rally was held at Yankee Stadium for Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison. On September 23, 2001, Yankee Stadium hosted a memorial service for victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.


title: Yankee Stadium (1923)

text: On March 10, 2006, Yankee Stadium saw its only wedding at home plate. Blind sportswriter Ed Lucas, who has been a member of the Yankee family for over 40 years, got special permission from the Yankees, the City of New York and Major League Baseball to exchange vows with his fiancée, Allison Pfieffle, on the same spot where Lou Gehrig made his famous farewell speech, among the many notable events. Over 400 people, including present and former members of the Yankee family were in attendance to see the happy couple united, and the ceremony was broadcast on ESPN, the YES Network, NBC's "Today Show" and other national media outlets.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Maverick is a 1994 American Western comedy film directed by Richard Donner, written by William Goldman, and starring Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and James Garner. Based on the 1957–1962 television series of the same name created by Roy Huggins and originally starring James Garner, the film stars Gibson as Bret Maverick, a card player and con artist who collects money in order to enter a high-stakes poker game. He is joined in his adventure by Annabelle Bransford (Foster), another con artist, and Marshal Zane Cooper (Garner), a lawman. The supporting cast features Graham Greene, James Coburn, Alfred Molina and many cameo appearances by Western film actors, country music stars and other actors.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Released theatrically by Warner Bros. on May 20, 1994, the film was both a critical and commercial success, having grossed over $183 million worldwide. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.


title: Maverick (film)

text: In the American Old West, gambler Bret Maverick is on his way to a major five-card draw poker tournament being held on the paddle steamer "Lauren Belle". Maverick wants to prove he is the best card player of his time. Short $3,000 of the $25,000 tournament entry fee, Maverick travels to the town of Crystal River, intending to make up the remainder by collecting debts and winning at poker. During one game, he encounters the ill-tempered gambler Angel, and the young con artist Annabelle Bransford. He wins a massive pot from Angel, but must flee without collecting his winnings.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Maverick and Bransford share a stagecoach with Marshal Zane Cooper, and together the three set out of Crystal River. They narrowly escape a fatal plunge into a ravine after their elderly driver suddenly dies, and later aid a group of missionary settlers who have been robbed by bandits disguised as Indians. The settlers offer Maverick a percentage of the recovered money they desperately need to start their mission, while one spinster missionary suggests marriage to Cooper, but both men turn down their offers. The trio and the settlers are then suddenly cornered by a large band of real Indians whose leader, Joseph, is an old friend of Maverick; however, no one else in the group is aware of this fact. Maverick feigns sacrificing himself to allow the others to escape, then tries to collect the $1,000 that Joseph owes him. The two swindle a Russian Archduke out of the needed amount with a scheme that "allows" him to hunt and kill an Indian (Maverick, in disguise).


title: Maverick (film)

text: Still seething over his loss in the Crystal River game, Angel receives a telegram instructing him to stop Maverick. Angel and his mercenaries catch Maverick and try to hang him, but he escapes after they have departed. Still $2,000 short, he makes his way to the "Lauren Belle" and finds Bransford, who is still $4,000 short herself. Spotting the Archduke aboard, Maverick poses as a Bureau of Indian Affairs agent investigating the shooting of Indians for game, conning the Archduke out of $6,000 to cover his and Bransford's entry.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Commodore Duvall welcomes the competitors to the tournament, with Cooper overseeing the security of the game and the $500,000 prize money and watching for any cheaters, who are summarily thrown overboard when discovered. Eventually, only Maverick, Angel, Bransford, and Duvall are left to play the winner-take-all final game. During a break before this game, Maverick and Bransford have a tryst in his quarters. After Bransford leaves, Maverick finds he has been locked in to attempt to make him forfeit the game, but manages to climb outside the steamer to reach the table on time. After Bransford has been eliminated, but Maverick notices that the dealer is engaging in bottom dealing and has Angel give him the top card from the deck in order to prevent further cheating. All three men bet their remaining chips; Angel and Duvall reveal strong hands, but Maverick has received the one card he needs to complete a royal flush. Angel and his men try to shoot and kill Maverick, but Cooper and Maverick shoot first, killing them.


title: Maverick (film)

text: During the closing ceremony, Cooper steals the prize money and escapes instead of giving it to Maverick. Later that night, Cooper secretly meets with Duvall, revealing that the two had struck a deal to steal the money for themselves and that Angel was working for Duvall. As Duvall draws a gun and tries to break the deal, Maverick appears and takes back the money, having tracked them down. Some time Later, Cooper corners Maverick while the latter is enjoying a hot bath; the two are father and son and had planned this scheme long in advance. As both men relax in the baths, Bransford arrives, having discerned their relationship from their similar physiques and mannerisms. She takes the satchel containing the prize money and departs, after which Maverick reveals to Cooper that he had followed the latter's advice and hidden half of it in his boots. He muses that retrieving the stolen $250,000 will be fun.


title: Maverick (film)

text: There are various cameo appearances in the film from Western actors, people who have formerly worked with Donner, Gibson, Foster, or Garner, and other celebrities including Danny Glover (uncredited), Hal Ketchum and Corey Feldman as bank robbers; Read Morgan and Steve Kahan as card dealers; Art LaFleur and Leo Gordon as poker players at Maverick's first game; Paul Brinegar as the stagecoach driver; Denver Pyle as a cheating old gambler; Robert Fuller, Doug McClure, Henry Darrow, William Smith and Charles Dierkop as riverboat poker players; William Marshall as a riverboat poker player defeated by Angel; Dennis Fimple as Stuttering, a player beaten by the Commodore; Bert Remsen as an elderly riverboat gambler beaten by Maverick; and Margot Kidder as missionary Margaret Mary, colleague of missionary Mary Margaret, in an uncredited appearance. Additional cameos cut from the film included Alice Cooper as the town drunk, Linda Hunt as a magician and Clint Walker as a Sheriff.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Leo Gordon had played a semi-regular supporting character in seasons one and two of the original "Maverick" TV show: gambler Big Mike McComb. Gordon also later wrote a few episodes of the show. Margot Kidder had been Garner's co-star and onscreen love interest in the short-lived western TV series "Nichols", reflected in their meeting in "Maverick" when her character quickly hints that his character might want to marry her. Danny Glover's cameo appearance references Donner's "Lethal Weapon" film series starring Glover and Gibson as cop partners. Their meeting in "Maverick" sees them share a moment of recognition, complete with "Lethal Weapon" music, and as he leaves, Glover says Roger Murtaugh's catchphrase: "I'm too old for this shit."


title: Maverick (film)

text: Country singers also cameo including Carlene Carter as a waitress, Waylon Jennings and Kathy Mattea as a gambling couple with concealed guns, Reba McEntire as a spectator in the opening poker game, Clint Black as a sweet-faced gambler thrown overboard for cheating, and Vince Gill and his then-wife Janis Gill as spectators.


title: Maverick (film)

text: In "Five Screenplays with Essays", Goldman describes an earlier version of the script, in which Maverick explains he has a magic ability to call the card he needs out of the deck. Although he is not able to do so successfully, the old hermit he attempts to demonstrate it for tells him that he really does have the magic in him. This scene was shot with Linda Hunt playing the hermit but it was felt it did not work in the context of the rest of the movie and was cut.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Garner wrote in his memoirs that Richard Donner originally wanted Paul Newman to play Zane Cooper but Newman was not interested.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Parts of the film were shot at Lake Powell and Warm Creek in Utah. Other filming locations include Lee's Ferry and Marble Canyon in Arizona, Lone Pine, Manzanar, Big Pine, and Yosemite National Park in California, and Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.


title: Maverick (film)

text: The steamboat used in the film—dubbed the "Lauren Belle"—was the "Portland", the last remaining sternwheel tugboat in the US; at the time it belonged to the Oregon Maritime Museum in Portland. Over several weeks, the boat was decorated to alter its appearance to resemble a Mississippi-style gambling boat, including the addition of two decorative chimneys. In August 1993, the production requested permission to film scenes of the riverboat along the Columbia River in Washington State. The artificial smoke released by the boat's chimney was considered to violate air-quality laws in Washington and Oregon and required approval for the scenes before their scheduled filming date in September 1993. After filming concluded, the decorations were removed and the boat was returned to its original state.


title: Maverick (film)

text: The soundtrack featured three chart singles: "Renegades, Rebels and Rogues" by Tracy Lawrence, "A Good Run of Bad Luck" by Clint Black (which also appeared on his album "No Time to Kill"), and "Something Already Gone" by Carlene Carter. Also included on the album was an all-star rendition of "Amazing Grace", from which all royalties were donated to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.


title: Maverick (film)

text: The film earned $101,631,272 (55.5%) in North America and $81,400,000 (44.5%) elsewhere for a worldwide total of $183,031,272. This gross made it the 12th highest-grossing film in North America and the 15th highest-grossing film worldwide of 1994. As of 2013, the film is the 6th highest grossing Western film in North America.


title: Maverick (film)

text: Pre-release tracking showed that the film would open strongly. During its opening weekend in North America, "Maverick" earned $17.2 million from 2,537 theaters – an average of $6,798 per theater – ranking as the number 1 film of the weekend, and took a total of $41.8 million over its first two weeks of release.


title: Maverick (film)

text: "Maverick" has received generally favorable reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 67% rating based on reviews from 54 critics, with an average rating of 6/10. The site's consensus states: "It isn't terribly deep, but it's witty and undeniably charming, and the cast is obviously having fun." On Metacritic it has a score of 62% based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A− on scale of A to F.


title: Maverick (film)

text: James Berardinelli, from reelviews.net, gave the film three and a half stars out of four. He stated, "The strength of Maverick is the ease with which it switches from comedy to action, and back again...it's refreshing to find something that satisfies expectations." Reviewing it for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing that the film is "the first lighthearted, laugh-oriented family Western in a long time, and one of the nice things about it is, it doesn't feel the need to justify its existence. It acts like it's the most natural thing in the world to be a Western."


title: Maverick (film)

text: In September 1994, Data East pinball released a pinball machine based on the film. The backglass featured the likeness of Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster and other stars of the film.


title: Sui dynasty

text: The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and laying the foundations for the much longer lasting Tang dynasty.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Founded by Emperor Wen of Sui, the Sui dynasty capital was Chang'an (which was renamed Daxing, modern Xi'an, Shaanxi) from 581–605 and later Luoyang (605–18). Emperors Wen and his successor Yang undertook various centralized reforms, most notably the equal-field system, intended to reduce economic inequality and improve agricultural productivity; the institution of the Five Departments and Six Board (五省六曹 or 五省六部) system, which is a predecessor of Three Departments and Six Ministries system; and the standardization and re-unification of the coinage. They also spread and encouraged Buddhism throughout the empire. By the middle of the dynasty, the newly unified empire entered a golden age of prosperity with vast agricultural surplus that supported rapid population growth.


title: Sui dynasty

text: A lasting legacy of the Sui dynasty was the Grand Canal. With the eastern capital Luoyang at the center of the network, it linked the west-lying capital Chang'an to the economic and agricultural centers of the east towards Jiangdu (now Yangzhou, Jiangsu) and Yuhang (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang), and to the northern border near modern Beijing. While the pressing initial motives were for shipment of grains to the capital, transporting troops, and military logistics, the reliable inland shipment links would facilitate domestic trade, flow of people and cultural exchange for centuries. Along with the extension of the Great Wall, and the construction of the eastern capital city of Luoyang, these mega projects, led by an efficient centralized bureaucracy, would amass millions of conscripted workers from the large population base, at heavy cost of human lives.


title: Sui dynasty

text: After a series of costly and disastrous military campaigns against Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, ended in defeat by 614, the dynasty disintegrated under a series of popular revolts culminating in the assassination of Emperor Yang by his minister, Yuwen Huaji in 618. The dynasty, which lasted only thirty-seven years, was undermined by ambitious wars and construction projects, which overstretched its resources. Particularly, under Emperor Yang, heavy taxation and compulsory labor duties would eventually induce widespread revolts and brief civil war following the fall of the dynasty.


title: Sui dynasty

text: The dynasty is often compared to the earlier Qin dynasty for unifying China after prolonged division. Wide-ranging reforms and construction projects were undertaken to consolidate the newly unified state, with long-lasting influences beyond their short dynastic reigns.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Towards the late Northern and Southern dynasties, the Xianbei-ruled Northern Zhou conquered the Northern Qi in 577 and reunified northern China. By this time, Yang Jian, an ethnic Han who would later found the Sui dynasty, became the regent to the Northern Zhou court. His daughter was the Empress Dowager, and her stepson, Emperor Jing of Northern Zhou, was a child. After crushing an army in the eastern provinces, Yang Jian usurped the throne from the Northern Zhou rulers, and became Emperor Wen of Sui. While formerly the Duke of Sui when serving at the Zhou court, where the character "Sui " literally means "to follow" and implies loyalty, Emperor Wen created the unique character "Sui ()", morphed from the character of his former title, as the name of his newly founded dynasty. In a bloody purge, he had fifty-nine princes of the Zhou royal family eliminated, yet nevertheless became known as the "Cultured Emperor". Emperor Wen abolished the anti-Han policies of Northern Zhou and reclaimed his Han surname of Yang. Having won the support of Confucian scholars who held power in previous Han dynasties (abandoning the nepotism and corruption of the nine-rank system), Emperor Wen initiated a series of reforms aimed at strengthening his empire for the wars that would reunify China.


title: Sui dynasty

text: In his campaign for southern conquest, Emperor Wen assembled thousands of boats to confront the naval forces of the Chen dynasty on the Yangtze River. The largest of these ships were very tall, having five layered decks and the capacity for 800 non-crew personnel. They were outfitted with six 50-foot-long booms that were used to swing and damage enemy ships, or to pin them down so that Sui marine troops could use act-and-board techniques. Besides employing Xianbei and other Chinese ethnic groups for the fight against Chen, Emperor Wen also employed the service of people from southeastern Sichuan, which Sui had recently conquered.


title: Sui dynasty

text: In 588, the Sui had amassed 518,000 troops along the northern bank of the Yangtze River, stretching from Sichuan to the East China Sea. The Chen dynasty could not withstand such an assault. By 589, Sui troops entered Jiankang (Nanjing) and the last emperor of Chen surrendered. The city was razed to the ground, while Sui troops escorted Chen nobles back north, where the northern aristocrats became fascinated with everything the south had to provide culturally and intellectually.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Although Emperor Wen was famous for bankrupting the state treasury with warfare and construction projects, he made many improvements to infrastructure during his early reign. He established granaries as sources of food and as a means to regulate market prices from the taxation of crops, much like the earlier Han dynasty. The large agricultural surplus supported rapid growth of population to a historical peak, which was only surpassed at the zenith of the Tang dynasty more than a century later.


title: Sui dynasty

text: The state capital of Chang'an (Daxing), while situated in the militarily secure heartland of Guanzhong, was remote from the economic centers to the east and south of the empire. Emperor Wen initiated the construction of the Grand Canal, with completion of the first (and the shortest) route that directly linked Chang'an to the Yellow River (Huang He). Later, Emperor Yang enormously enlarged the scale of the Grand Canal construction.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Externally, the emerging nomadic Turkic (Tujue) Khaganate in the north posed a major threat to the newly founded dynasty. With Emperor Wen's diplomatic maneuver, the Khaganate split into Eastern and Western halves. Later the Great Wall was consolidated to further secure the northern territory. In Emperor Wen's late years, the first war with Goguryeo (Korea), ended with defeat. Nevertheless, the celebrated "Reign of Kaihuang" (era name of Emperor Wen) was considered by historians as one of the apexes in the two millennium imperial period of Chinese history.


title: Sui dynasty

text: The Sui Emperors were from the northwest military aristocracy, and they cited as their ancestors the Yang of Hongnong 弘農楊氏, a Han clan. They emphasized their Han ancestry, and claimed descent from the Han official Yang Zhen. The New Book of Tang traces their patrilineal ancestry to the Zhou dynasty kings via the Dukes of Jin. The Li of Zhaojun and the Lu of Fanyang hailed from Shandong and were related to the Liu clan, which was also linked to the Yang of Hongnong and other clans of Guanlong.


title: Sui dynasty

text: The Yang of Hongnong, Jia of Hedong, Xiang of Henei, and Wang of Taiyuan from the Tang dynasty were later claimed as ancestors by Song dynasty lineages.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Information about these major political events in China were somehow filtered west and reached the Byzantine Empire, the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east. From Turkic peoples of Central Asia the Eastern Romans derived a new name for China after the older "Sinae" and "Serica": "Taugast" (Old Turkic: "Tabghach"), during its Northern Wei (386–535) period. The 7th-century Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta wrote a generally accurate depiction of the reunification of China by Emperor Wen of the Sui dynasty, with the conquest of the rival Chen dynasty in southern China. Simocatta correctly placed these events within the reign period of Byzantine ruler Maurice. Simocatta also provided cursory information about the geography of China, its division by the Yangzi River and its capital "Khubdan" (from Old Turkic "Khumdan", i.e. Chang'an) along with its customs and culture, deeming its people "idolatrous" but wise in governance. He noted that the ruler was named "Taisson", which he claimed meant "Son of God", perhaps Chinese "Tianzi" (Son of Heaven) or even the name of the contemporary ruler Emperor Taizong of Tang.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Emperor Yang of Sui (569–618) ascended the throne after his father's death, possibly by murder. He further extended the empire, but unlike his father, did not seek to gain support from the nomads. Instead, he restored Confucian education and the Confucian examination system for bureaucrats. By supporting educational reforms, he lost the support of the nomads. He also started many expensive construction projects such as the Grand Canal of China, and became embroiled in several costly wars. Between these policies, invasions into China from Turkic nomads, and his growing life of decadent luxury at the expense of the peasantry, he lost public support and was eventually assassinated by his own ministers.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Both Emperors Yang and Wen sent military expeditions into Vietnam as Annam in northern Vietnam had been incorporated into the Chinese empire over 600 years earlier during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD). However the Kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam became a major counterpart to Chinese invasions to its north. According to Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais, these invasions became known as the Linyi-Champa Campaign (602–605).


title: Sui dynasty

text: The Hanoi area formerly held by the Han and Jin dynasties was easily retaken from the Early Lý dynasty ruler Lý Phật Tử in 602. A few years later the Sui army pushed farther south and was attacked by troops on war elephants from Champa in southern Vietnam. The Sui army feigned retreat and dug pits to trap the elephants, lured the Champan troops to attack then used crossbows against the elephants causing them to turn around and trample their own soldiers. Although Sui troops were victorious many succumbed to disease as northern soldiers did not have immunity to tropical diseases such as malaria.


title: Sui dynasty

text: The Sui dynasty led a series of massive expeditions to invade Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Emperor Yang conscripted many soldiers for the campaign. This army was so enormous it recorded in historical texts that it took 30 days for all the armies to exit their last rallying point near Shanhaiguan before invading Goguryeo. In one instance the soldiers—both conscripted and paid—listed over 3000 warships, up to 1.15 million infantry, 50,000 cavalry, 5000 artillery, and more. The army stretched to 1000 "li" or about across rivers and valleys, over mountains and hills. Each of the four military expeditions ended in failure, incurring a substantial financial and manpower deficit from which the Sui would never recover.


title: Sui dynasty

text: One of the major work projects undertaken by the Sui was construction activities along the Great Wall of China; but this, along with other large projects, strained the economy and angered the resentful workforce employed. During the last few years of the Sui dynasty, the rebellion that rose against it took many of China's able-bodied men from rural farms and other occupations, which in turn damaged the agricultural base and the economy further. Men would deliberately break their limbs in order to avoid military conscription, calling the practice "propitious paws" and "fortunate feet." Later, after the fall of Sui, in the year 642, Emperor Taizong of Tang made an effort to eradicate this practice by issuing a decree of a stiffer punishment for those who were found to deliberately injure and heal themselves.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Although the Sui dynasty was relatively short (581–618), much was accomplished during its tenure. The Grand Canal was one of the main accomplishments. It was extended north from the Hangzhou region across the Yangzi to Yangzhou and then northwest to the region of Luoyang. Again, like the Great Wall works, the massive conscription of labor and allocation of resources for the Grand Canal project resulted in challenges for Sui dynastic continuity. The eventual fall of the Sui dynasty was also due to the many losses caused by the failed military campaigns against Goguryeo. It was after these defeats and losses that the country was left in ruins and rebels soon took control of the government. Emperor Yang was assassinated in 618. He had gone South after the capital being threatened by various rebel groups and was killed by his advisors (Yuwen Clan). Meanwhile, in the North, the aristocrat Li Yuan () held an uprising after which he ended up ascending the throne to become Emperor Gaozu of Tang. This was the start of the Tang dynasty, one of the most-noted dynasties in Chinese history.


title: Sui dynasty

text: There were Dukedoms for the offspring of the royal families of the Zhou dynasty, Sui dynasty, and Tang dynasty in the Later Jin (Five Dynasties). This practice was referred to as ().


title: Sui dynasty

text: Although the Sui dynasty was relatively short-lived, in terms of culture, it represents a transition from the preceding ages, and many cultural developments which can be seen to be incipient during the Sui dynasty later were expanded and consolidated during the ensuing Tang dynasty, and later ages. This includes not only the major public works initiated, such as the Great Wall and the Great Canal, but also the political system developed by Sui, which was adopted by Tang with little initial change other than at the top of the political hierarchy. Other cultural developments of the Sui dynasty included religion and literature, particular examples being Buddhism and poetry.


title: Sui dynasty

text: The Sui court pursued a pro-Taoist policy. The first reign of the dynasty saw the state promoting the Northern Louguan school of Taoism, while the second reign instead promoted the Southern Shangqing school of Taoism, possibly due to Emperor Yang's preference for Southern culture.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Buddhism was popular during the Sixteen Kingdoms and Northern and Southern dynasties period that preceded the Sui dynasty, spreading from India through Kushan Afghanistan into China during the Late Han period. Buddhism gained prominence during the period when central political control was limited. Buddhism created a unifying cultural force that uplifted the people out of war and into the Sui dynasty. In many ways, Buddhism was responsible for the rebirth of culture in China under the Sui dynasty.


title: Sui dynasty

text: While early Buddhist teachings were acquired from Sanskrit sutras from India, it was during the late Six dynasties and Sui dynasty that local Chinese schools of Buddhist thoughts started to flourish. Most notably, Zhiyi founded the Tiantai school and completed the Great treatise on Concentration and Insight, within which he taught the principle of "Three Thousand Realms in a Single moment of Life" as the essence of Buddhist teaching outlined in the Lotus Sutra.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Emperor Wen and his empress had converted to Buddhism to legitimize imperial authority over China and the conquest of Chen. The emperor presented himself as a Cakravartin king, a Buddhist monarch who would use military force to defend the Buddhist faith. In the year 601 AD, Emperor Wen had relics of the Buddha distributed to temples throughout China, with edicts that expressed his goals, "all the people within the Four Seas may, without exception, develop enlightenment and together cultivate fortunate karma, bringing it to pass that present existences will lead to happy future lives, that the sustained creation of good causation will carry us one and all up to wondrous enlightenment". Ultimately, this act was an imitation of the ancient Mauryan Emperor Ashoka of India.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Confucian philosopher Wang Tong wrote and taught during the Sui dynasty, and even briefly held office as Secretary of Shuzhou. His most famous (as well as only surviving) work, the "Explanation of the Mean" (Zhongshuo, 中說) was compiled shortly after his death in 617.


title: Sui dynasty

text: Although poetry continued to be written, and certain poets rose in prominence while others disappeared from the landscape, the brief Sui dynasty, in terms of the development of Chinese poetry, lacks distinction, though it nonetheless represents a continuity between the Six Dynasties and the poetry of Tang. Sui dynasty poets include Yang Guang (580–618), who was the last Sui emperor (and a sort of poetry critic); and also, the Lady Hou, one of his consorts.


title: Polydor Records

text: Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. In turn, Polydor distributes Interscope releases in the United Kingdom. Polydor Records Ltd. was established in London in 1954 as a British subsidiary of German company Deutsche Grammophon/Schallplatte Grammophon GmbH. It was renamed Polydor Ltd. in 1972.


title: Polydor Records

text: Notable current and past artists signed to the label include ABBA, Cream, The Moody Blues, The Who, Ringo Starr, Bee Gees, The Jam, Bing Crosby, The Shadows, James Brown, Level 42, Ellie Goulding, Juice WRLD, Piri & Tommy, James Last, Eric Clapton, Marie Osmond, Keith O'Conner Murphy, Yngwie Malmsteen, Lana Del Rey, Haim, and Buckingham Nicks.


title: Polydor Records

text: Polydor Records was founded on 2 April 1913 by German Polyphon-Musikwerke AG in Leipzig and registered on 25 July 1914 (Nr. 316613). The label was founded as Firma Brachhausen & Riesener in 1887 by Gustav Adolf Brachhausen and Ernst Paul Riessner, for manufacturing their new mechanical disc-playing music box Polyphon, invented in 1870. During World War I on 24 April 1917, Polyphon-Musikwerke AG acquired the German Deutsche Grammophon-Aktiengesellschaft record plant and company from the German government. The German state had taken over British-held Grammophon as enemy property during World War I.


title: Polydor Records

text: Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Polyphon-Grammophon-Konzern group. It was used as an export label from 1924. After the British and German branches of the Gramophone Company were separated during World War I, Deutsche Grammophon claimed the rights to the Nipper-dog and gramophone trademark for Germany, where HMV recordings were to be released under the Electrola trademark replacing the company lost during the war. In turn, Deutsche Grammophon records exported from Germany were released on the Polyphon Musik and Polydor labels. New foreign branches were founded, for example in Austria, Denmark, Sweden and France.


title: Polydor Records

text: Polydor became a popular music label in 1946, while the new Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft label became a classical music label in 1949. The previously used label, Grammophon, was disbanded. DGG gave, by an agreement dated 5 July 1949, an exclusive license from 1 July 1951 to use the Nipper-dog with gramophone to the original owner's company Electrola, the German branch of EMI. (In Germany, it was impossible to sell the trademark without selling the company.) Polydor remained Deutsche Grammophon's export label, including classical music, in France and the Spanish-speaking world for the remainder of the long-playing era, as a result of language and cultural concerns. DGG established a subsidiary in London called Polydor Records Ltd. in 1954.


title: Polydor Records

text: In the early 1960s, orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert signed unknowns Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers - who later became known as The Beatles—to Polydor. Popular International entertainers such as James Last, Bert Kaempfert, Kurt Edelhagen, Caterina Valente and the Kessler Twins appeared on the Polydor label, as well as many French, Spanish and Latin-American figures.


title: Polydor Records

text: Siemens entered into a joint venture with Philips in 1962 creating the Grammophon-Philips Group, of which Polydor became a subsidiary label.


title: Polydor Records

text: Polydor opened a US branch in 1969 (in years prior, they licensed their catalogue to Atlantic Records), but did not become a real presence in the US record industry until its purchase of the recording contract and back catalogue of R&B performer James Brown in 1971, and the absorption of the MGM Records label by its parent company PolyGram in 1972.


title: Polydor Records

text: In 1970, Polydor acquired the Hong Kong–based Diamond Records, which had been owned and founded by the local Portuguese merchant Ren da Silva in the late 1950s.


title: Polydor Records

text: In 1972, The Grammophon-Philips Group (GPG) reorganised to create PolyGram, from Polydor and PhonoGram. The "Polydor" label continued to run as a subsidiary label under the new company. Throughout the 1970s, Polydor Incorporated became a major rock label, also releasing records by such platinum-selling acts as the Bee Gees and Gloria Gaynor.


title: Polydor Records

text: Into the 1980s, Polydor continued to do respectable business, in spite of becoming increasingly overshadowed by its PolyGram sister label Mercury Records. Polydor took over management of British Decca's pop catalogue. A&R manager Frank Neilson was able to score a major top ten hit in March 1981 for the label with "Do the Hucklebuck" by Coast to Coast as well as signing Ian Dury and Billy Fury to the company. In 1984, the company name was parodied in the rockumentary film "This Is Spinal Tap" (whose soundtrack album was distributed by Polydor), where "Polymer Records" was the band's record company.


title: Polydor Records

text: By the early 1990s, Polydor had begun to underperform. PolyGram subsequently trimmed most of Polydor's staff and roster, and shifted it to operate under the umbrella of PolyGram Label Group (PLG), a newly constructed "super label" specifically designed to oversee the operations of PolyGram's lesser performing imprints, which included Island Records, London Records, Atlas Records and Verve Records at the time.


title: Polydor Records

text: In 1994, as Island Records recovered from its sales slump, PolyGram dissolved most of PLG into it. Meanwhile, Polydor Records and Atlas Records merged, briefly called "Polydor/Atlas", and began operating through A&M Records, another PolyGram subsidiary. In 1995, Polydor/Atlas became simply Polydor Records again.


title: Polydor Records

text: Over the next few years, Polydor tried to keep itself afloat with new artist signings, new releases, and reissues, while still becoming more and more dormant. In 1998, PolyGram was purchased by Seagram and absorbed into its Universal Music Group. During the consolidation of these two music giants, Polydor's United States operations were folded into Interscope-Geffen-A&M and Universal Records, while its overseas branch remained intact, with its records continuing to be distributed domestically through Interscope and A&M. Today, in North America, the Polydor Records name and logo is mostly used on reissues of older material from its 1960s and 1970s heyday. Island Records handles the US distribution of most pre-1998 Polydor releases, including the reissues from the British Decca pop/rock collections, while Republic Records handles reissues from James Brown and the MGM Records and Verve Records pop catalog. However, starting in the 2010s, Interscope Records has been signing acts such as Azealia Banks and Lana Del Rey jointly to Polydor and its logo has been seen on both releases.


title: Polydor Records

text: Record producer Harold Shedd founded Polydor's Nashville, Tennessee, division in 1994, which specialised in country music. Among the acts signed to Polydor Nashville were Shane Sutton, Tasha Harris, 4 Runner, the Moffatts, Chely Wright, Mark Luna, Clinton Gregory, Amie Comeaux, along with Toby Keith and Davis Daniel, who transferred from Mercury Nashville in 1994. The Nashville division was renamed A&M Nashville in March 1996 and closed in September of the same year, as PolyGram consolidated all its Nashville operations under the Mercury name. Today, Polydor, along with EMI Records in the UK and Australia and UMG itself in Canada distribute Lost Highway Records' albums in the Commonwealth realms.


title: Polydor Records

text: In 1972 the British Polydor Records Ltd. was renamed to Polydor Ltd. In the early 1970s, the main source of income for the label was the successful UK band Slade as well as The New Seekers and The Who. At the time, between the 1970s and 1980s, the Polydor/PolyGram Senior VP (who was originally the first head of their new at the time rock department) was Jerry Jaffe, who also signed acts such as Motörhead, Dexy's Midnight Runners, and The Jam. He also interacted with many famous and successful artists while in that position, including Nick Lowe and John Lennon, as well as going on to work with groups such as The Jesus and Mary Chain and Saint Etienne the late 1980s and 1990s. Later, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the label was also home to The Who and The Jam (as well as its successor act The Style Council).


title: Polydor Records

text: Although Polydor's American branch is nearly inactive, in the United Kingdom Polydor remains one of the most prominent labels in the country—with artists such as Take That, Cheryl, Duffy, Girls Aloud, The Saturdays, Kaiser Chiefs, Ellie Goulding and Lawson. Polydor also has a strong indie roster through the Fiction imprint with acts such as Ian Brown, Bright Eyes, Elbow, White Lies, The Maccabees, Kate Nash, Snow Patrol, Filthy Dukes, and Crystal Castles. Polydor has also survived in Canada, becoming the home label for Drake. It also acts as the UK label for American-based acts under Interscope-Geffen-A&M like Madonna, Eminem, the All-American Rejects, the Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani, Dr. Dre, Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Kendrick Lamar, Maroon 5, M.I.A., No Doubt, Sting and JoJo.


title: Polydor Records

text: In 2006, Polydor launched Fascination Records, a music label dedicated to pop music. Both Girls Aloud and Sophie Ellis-Bextor transferred to the new label and created groups such as The Saturdays and Girls Can't Catch. Several pop acts from US label Hollywood Records, such as Demi Lovato, Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez & the Scene were also signed to Fascination.


title: Polydor Records

text: In 2008, A&M Records UK was founded as an imprint of Polydor UK. The same year Polydor obtained distribution of The Rolling Stones' back catalogue as well as new releases. With the establishment of A&M Records UK, A&M Records' Canadian division became a separate entity for the first time since the formation of Universal Music Group. Polydor, meanwhile, continued to distribute Interscope, Geffen and selected Lost Highway releases in Canada through Universal Music Canada, as it does to this day.


title: Nia Peeples

text: Virenia "Nia" Peeples (born December 10, 1961) is an American R&B and dance music singer and actress. Peeples is known for playing Nicole Chapman on the hit TV series "Fame"; Pam Fields on the drama "Pretty Little Liars"; Karen Taylor Winters on "The Young and the Restless" and Sydney Cooke on "Walker, Texas Ranger". Her most recent television role was Grace's mom, Susan, on "The Fosters".


title: Nia Peeples

text: Peeples was born December 10, 1961, in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Elizabeth Joan (née Rubic), a flamenco dancer, and Robert Eugene Peeples. She was raised in West Covina. Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from the Philippines. Her father, who was originally from Mississippi, was of Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry. Peeples attended UCLA during which time she performed as Liberace's opening act in Las Vegas on weekends.


title: Nia Peeples

text: Peeples lives in Malibu, California, and has one son Christopher (b. 1989 with ex-husband Howard Hewett) and one daughter with her former husband, Lauro Chartrand.


title: Nia Peeples

text: She operates an internet based organization called Elements of Life, which promotes fitness, inspiration, healthy lifestyle changes and emotional well-being. She worked with business coach Amy Applebaum on its development.


title: Nia Peeples

text: On August 11, 2015, Peeples filed for divorce from her surfer husband Sam George. Peeples filed in Los Angeles County, 20 days before the couple's eighth wedding anniversary. Peeples is seeking to keep the couple's home, a Malibu manufactured home with an ocean view that's valued at $875,000. Also listed among the couple's community assets is a Las Vegas condo worth $91,000.


title: Nia Peeples

text: Peeples started her career as part of the performance group The Young Americans. In 1988 she hit #1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart with "Trouble", which climbed to #35 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Her most successful pop single is "Street Of Dreams", which hit #12 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in 1991. She made a music video in 1986 for "All You Can Dream", directed by Alan Bloom and conceptualized by Keith Williams, for the purposes of promoting the values of UCLA. On February 4, 2009, Peeples presented Debbie Allen with a Lifetime Achievement Award at 10th anniversary show. Peeples also attends and performs at the annual live Fame Reunion concerts overseas.


title: Nia Peeples

text: Notably, Peeples portrayed performing arts student Nicole Chapman on the hit TV series "Fame". In 1987, she was in the movie "North Shore" as Kiani. She also hosted the short-lived American version of "Top of the Pops" in 1987, a weeknight dance music program called "The Party Machine with Nia Peeples" (1991), and portrayed Texas Ranger Sydney Cooke in the CBS hit series "Walker, Texas Ranger" from 1999 to 2001. In 2004, she appeared in the "Andromeda" episode "The Spider's Stratagem", as arms smuggler and love-interest Rox Nava. Peeples joined the cast of "The Young and the Restless" in 2007, playing the role of Karen Taylor, and was released from the role in the spring of 2009. In 2010, she was cast in ABC Family's TV series "Pretty Little Liars", based on the book series by Sara Shepard. Peeples was featured on the July 7, 2013 episode of "Celebrity Wife Swap", in which she traded places with singer Tiffany.


title: Straight flag

text: A straight flag or heterosexual flag is a pride flag intended to represent heterosexuality. Some straight flags represent straight pride, a conservative counter movement to gay pride. There is also the straight ally flag, which is intended to represent allyship by straight people with the LGBT community. Although there are many proposed straight flags, none of them enjoys broad consensus for usage today.


title: Straight flag

text: A flag composed of alternating black and white strips, with a design similar to the rainbow LGBT pride flag, was created to represent straight pride. Several variations of this flag exist. One uses white, grey and black colors, also mimicking the rainbow flag and originating in the early 2000s. Another variation with the male and female gender symbols imposed over its field also exists.


title: Straight flag

text: In 2015, the Russian political party United Russia, of which the then President of Russia Vladimir Putin was then part, introduced a straight pride flag to be displayed on the Peter and Fevronia Day (also known as the Day of Family, Love and Faithfulness). It consists of a woman, a man and their three children with a hashtag saying ("#RealFamily") below. It was created as a response to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States earlier on the same year. It has three variants, each representing one of the three colors of the flag of Russia. One portrays the family and text in red in a white background while other two display the symbols in white on a red or blue field. The French organization against same-sex marriage "La Manif pour tous" accused the party of plagiarism, as the flag it used was highly similar to the one used by United Russia, with the only differences being that the French organization's flag has two children and not three. However, Alexey Lisovenko, the then deputy head of United Russia in Moscow, stated that the design of the flag had been done with the approval of creators of "La Manif pour tous" flag.


title: Straight flag

text: In 2019, the American organization Super Happy Fun America led a straight pride parade in Boston, in the United States, in August of the same year. Described as "a response to the 'identity politics' of the left", the event attracted several hundred participants and thousands of counter-protesters, who vastly outnumbered participants of the parade. The organization featured a straight pride flag in its official website. This flag was rectangular and divided from its upper hoist to its lower fly, with pink at the fly and blue at the hoist, and superimposed with interlocked male and female gender symbols in yellow bordered with black.


title: Straight flag

text: In 2021, a social media trend called "super straight" emerged on TikTok on 21 February and later spread to other websites like 4chan, Reddit and Twitter. Supporters stated that "super straight" was a new sexuality describing heterosexuals who would never have a sexual relationship with transgender people. Its originator said he created the term because he was tired of being called transphobic. The trend was described by "Insider" and "The Daily Dot" as a transphobic campaign, and listed by GLAAD as online hate speech. Supporters of the trend created an orange and black flag, which has been said to be meant to imitate PornHub's logo. Variants of the flag included the hashtag "#SuperStraight" or intertwined male and female symbols. Some people on 4chan used the acronym SS for "super straight", which led some people, including some supporters of the trend on the website, to associate it with the logo of Adolf Hitler's Schutzstaffel, which also used SS as its acronym. As a result, some flags with Nazi symbolism were also used by these supporters.


title: Straight flag

text: A variation of the alternating black-and-white striped flag is known as the straight ally flag, and represents heterosexual people who support the LGBT community. It combines the black and white straight flag with the rainbow LGBT flag. The rainbow portion of the flag sometimes takes the form of an "A", representing the word "allies", or an inverted "V". It originated in the late 2000s, but its exact origin is unknown.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the historic county of Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on the River Wear's mouth to the North Sea. The river also flows through Durham roughly south-west of Sunderland City Centre. It is the only other city in the county and the second largest settlement in the North East after Newcastle upon Tyne.


title: Sunderland

text: Locals from the city are sometimes known as Mackems. The term originated as recently as the early 1980s; its use and acceptance by residents, particularly among the older generations, is not universal. At one time, ships built on the Wear were called "Jamies", in contrast with those from the Tyne, which were known as "Geordies", although in the case of "Jamie" it is not known whether this was ever extended to people.


title: Sunderland

text: There were three original settlements by the River's mouth which are part of the modern-day city: Monkwearmouth, settled in 674 on the river's north bank with King Ecgfrith of Northumbria land granting to Benedict Biscop to found a monastery which, together with Jarrow monastery, later formed the dual Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey; Sunderland, settled in 685; and Bishopwearmouth, founded in 930. The later two are on the Wear's southern bank. The second settlement on the wear's mouth grew as a fishing settlement and later as a port, being granted a town charter in 1179. The city started to trade coal and salt with ships starting to be built on the river in the 14th century. By the 19th century, with a population increase due to shipbuilding, port and docks, the town absorbed the other two settlements. Following decline of its traditional industries in the late 20th century, the area became an automotive building centre, science-and-technology and the service sector. In 1992, the borough of Sunderland was granted city status.


title: Sunderland

text: In 685, King Ecgfrith granted Benedict Biscop a "sunder-land". Also in 685 The Venerable Bede moved to the newly founded Jarrow monastery. He had started his monastic career at Monkwearmouth monastery and later wrote that he was "ácenned on "sundorlande" þæs ylcan mynstres" (born in a "separate land" of this same monastery). This can be taken as "sundorlande" (being Old English for "separate land") or the settlement of Sunderland. Alternatively, it is possible that Sunderland was later named in honour of Bede's connections to the area by people familiar with this statement of his.


title: Sunderland

text: The earliest inhabitants of the Sunderland area were Stone Age hunter-gatherers and artifacts from this era have been discovered, including microliths found during excavations at St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth. During the final phase of the Stone Age, the Neolithic period (c. 4000 – c. 2000 BC), Hastings Hill, on the western outskirts of Sunderland, was a focal point of activity and a place of burial and ritual significance. Evidence includes the former presence of a cursus monument.


title: Sunderland

text: It is believed the Brythonic-speaking Brigantes inhabited the area around the River Wear in pre-Roman Britain. There is a long-standing local legend that there was a Roman settlement on the south bank of the River Wear on what is the site of the former Vaux Brewery, although no archaeological investigation has taken place.


title: Sunderland

text: In March 2021, a "trove" of Roman artefacts were recovered in the River Wear at North Hylton, including four stone anchors, a discovery of huge significance that may affirm a persistent theory of a Roman Dam or Port existing at the River Wear.


title: Sunderland

text: Recorded settlements at the mouth of the Wear date to 674, when an Anglo-Saxon nobleman, Benedict Biscop, granted land by King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, founded the Wearmouth–Jarrow ("St Peter's") monastery on the north bank of the river—an area that became known as Monkwearmouth. Biscop's monastery was the first built of stone in Northumbria. He employed glaziers from France and in doing he re-established glass making in Britain.


title: Sunderland

text: In 686 the community was taken over by Ceolfrid, and Wearmouth–Jarrow became a major centre of learning and knowledge in Anglo-Saxon England with a library of around 300 volumes.


title: Sunderland

text: The Codex Amiatinus, described by White as the 'finest book in the world', was created at the monastery and was likely worked on by Bede, who was born at Wearmouth in 673. This is one of the oldest monasteries still standing in England. While at the monastery, Bede completed the "Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum" "(The Ecclesiastical History of the English People)" in 731, a feat which earned him the title "The father of English history".


title: Sunderland

text: In the late 8th century the Vikings raided the coast, and by the middle of the 9th century the monastery had been abandoned. Lands on the south side of the river were granted to the Bishop of Durham by Athelstan of England in 930; these became known as Bishopwearmouth and included settlements such as Ryhope which fall within the modern boundary of Sunderland.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1100, Bishopwearmouth parish included a fishing village at the southern mouth of the river (now the East End) known as 'Soender-land' (which evolved into 'Sunderland'). This settlement was granted a charter in 1179 by Hugh Pudsey, then the Bishop of Durham (who had quasi-monarchical power within the County Palatine); the charter gave its merchants the same rights as those of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but it nevertheless took time for Sunderland to develop as a port. Fishing was the main commercial activity at the time: mainly herring in the 13th century, then salmon in the 14th and 15th centuries. From 1346 ships were being built at Wearmouth, by a merchant named Thomas Menville, and by 1396 a small amount of coal was being exported.


title: Sunderland

text: Rapid growth of the port was prompted by the salt trade. Salt exports from Sunderland are recorded from as early as the 13th century, by 1589 salt pans were laid at Bishopwearmouth Panns (the modern-day name of the area the pans occupied is Pann's Bank, on the river bank between the city centre and the East End). Large vats of seawater were heated using coal; as the water evaporated, the salt remained. As coal was required to heat the salt pans, a coal mining community began to emerge. Only poor-quality coal was used in salt panning; better-quality coal was traded via the port, which subsequently began to grow.


title: Sunderland

text: Both salt and coal continued to be exported through the 17th century, with the coal trade growing significantly (2–3,000 tons of coal were exported from Sunderland in the year 1600; by 1680 this had increased to 180,000 tons). Difficulty for colliers trying to navigate the Wear’s shallow waters meant coal mined further inland was loaded onto keels (large, flat-bottomed boats) and taken downriver to the waiting colliers. A close-knit group of workers manned the Keels as 'keelmen'. In 1634 a market and yearly fair charter was granted by Bishop Thomas Morton, incorporated the settlement as a town.


title: Sunderland

text: Before the civil war and with the exclusion of Kingston upon Hull, the North declared for the King. In 1644 the North was captured by the Roundheads (Parliamentarians), the area itself taken in March of that year. One artifact of the civil war in the area was the long trench; a tactic of later warfare. In the village of Offerton roughly three miles inland from the present city centre, skirmishes occurred. The Roundheads blockaded the River Tyne, crippling the Newcastle coal trade, which allowed a short period of flourishing coal trade on the Wear.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1669, after the Restoration, King Charles II granted letters patent to one Edward Andrew, Esq. to 'build a pier and erect a lighthouse or lighthouses and cleanse the harbour of Sunderland'. They was a tonnage duty levy on shipping in order to raise the necessary funds. They was a growing number of shipbuilders or boatbuilders active on the River Wear in the late 17th century.


title: Sunderland

text: By the start of the 18th century the banks of the Wear were described as being studded with small shipyards, as far as the tide flowed. After 1717, measures having been taken to increase the depth of the river, Sunderland's shipbuilding trade grew substantially (in parallel with its coal exports). A number of warships were built, alongside many commercial sailing ships. By the middle of the century the town was probably the premier shipbuilding centre in Britain. By 1788 Sunderland was Britain's fourth largest port (by measure of tonnage) after London, Newcastle and Liverpool; among these it was the leading coal exporter (though it did not rival Newcastle in terms of home coal trade). Still further growth was driven across the region, towards the end of the century, by London's insatiable demand for coal during the French Revolutionary Wars.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1719, the parish of Sunderland was carved from the densely populated east end of Bishopwearmouth by the establishment of a new parish church, Holy Trinity Church, Sunderland (today also known as Sunderland Old Parish Church). Later, in 1769, St John's Church was built as a chapel of ease within Holy Trinity parish; built by a local coal fitter, John Thornhill, it stood in Prospect Row to the north-east of the parish church. (St John's was demolished in 1972.) By 1720 the port area was completely built up, with large houses and gardens facing the Town Moor and the sea, and labourers' dwellings vying with manufactories alongside the river. The three original settlements of Wearmouth (Bishopwearmouth, Monkwearmouth and Sunderland) had started to combine, driven by the success of the port of Sunderland, salt panning and shipbuilding along the banks of the river. Around this time, Sunderland was known as 'Sunderland-near-the-Sea'.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland's third-biggest export, after coal and salt, was glass. The town's first modern glassworks were established in the 1690s and the industry grew through the 17th century. Its flourishing was aided by trading ships bringing good-quality sand (as ballast) from the Baltic and elsewhere which, together with locally available limestone (and coal to fire the furnaces) was a key ingredient in the glassmaking process. Other industries that developed alongside the river included lime burning and pottery making (the town's first commercial pottery manufactory, the Garrison Pottery, had opened in old Sunderland in 1750).


title: Sunderland

text: By 1770 Sunderland had spread westwards along its High Street to join up with Bishopwearmouth. In 1796 Bishopwearmouth in turn gained a physical link with Monkwearmouth following the construction of a bridge, the Wearmouth Bridge, which was the world's second iron bridge (after the famous span at Ironbridge). It was built at the instigation of Rowland Burdon, the Member of Parliament (MP) for County Durham, and described by Nikolaus Pevsner as being 'a triumph of the new metallurgy and engineering ingenuity [...] of superb elegance'. Spanning the river in a single sweep of , it was over twice the length of the earlier bridge at Ironbridge but only three-quarters the weight. At the time of building, it was the biggest single-span bridge in the world; and because Sunderland had developed on a plateau above the river, it never suffered from the problem of interrupting the passage of high-masted vessels.


title: Sunderland

text: During the War of Jenkins' Ear a pair of gun batteries were built (in 1742 and 1745) on the shoreline to the south of the South Pier, to defend the river from attack (a further battery was built on the cliff top in Roker, ten years later). One of the pair was washed away by the sea in 1780, but the other was expanded during the French Revolutionary Wars and became known as the Black Cat Battery. In 1794 Sunderland Barracks were built, behind the battery, close to what was then the tip of the headland.


title: Sunderland

text: The world's first steam dredger was built in Sunderland in 1796-7 and put to work on the river the following year. Designed by Stout's successor as Engineer, Jonathan Pickernell jr (in post from 1795 to 1804), it consisted of a set of 'bag and spoon' dredgers driven by a tailor-made 4-horsepower Boulton & Watt beam engine. It was designed to dredge to a maximum depth of below the waterline and remained in operation until 1804, when its constituent parts were sold as separate lots. Onshore, numerous small industries supported the business of the burgeoning port. In 1797 the world's first patent ropery (producing machine-made rope, rather than using a ropewalk) was built in Sunderland, using a steam-powered hemp-spinning machine which had been devised by a local schoolmaster, Richard Fothergill, in 1793; the ropery building still stands, in the Deptford area of the city.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland's shipbuilding industry continued to grow through most of the 19th century, becoming the town's dominant industry and a defining part of its identity. By 1815 it was 'the leading shipbuilding port for wooden trading vessels' with 600 ships constructed that year across 31 different yards. By 1840 the town had 76 shipyards and between 1820 and 1850 the number of ships being built on the Wear increased fivefold. From 1846 to 1854 almost a third of the UK's ships were built in Sunderland, and in 1850 the "Sunderland Herald" proclaimed the town to be the greatest shipbuilding port in the world.


title: Sunderland

text: The Durham & Sunderland Railway Co. built a railway line across the Town Moor and established a passenger terminus there in 1836. In 1847 the line was bought by George Hudson's York and Newcastle Railway. Hudson, nicknamed 'The Railway King', was Member of Parliament for Sunderland and was already involved in a scheme to build a dock in the area. In 1846 he had formed the Sunderland Dock Company, which received parliamentary approval for the construction of a dock between the South Pier and Hendon Bay.


title: Sunderland

text: Increasing industrialisation had prompted residents an expansion away from the old port area in the suburban terraces of the Fawcett Estate and Mowbray Park. The area around Fawcett Street itself increasingly functioned as the civic and commercial town centre.


title: Sunderland

text: Marine engineering works were established from the 1820s onwards, initially providing engines for paddle steamers; in 1845 a ship named "Experiment" was the first of many to be converted to steam screw propulsion. Demand for steam-powered vessels increased during the Crimean War; nonetheless, sailing ships continued to be built, including fast fully-rigged composite-built clippers, including the "City of Adelaide" in 1864 and "Torrens" (the last such vessel ever built), in 1875.


title: Sunderland

text: By the middle of the century glassmaking was at its height on Wearside. James Hartley & Co., established in Sunderland in 1836, grew to be the largest glassworks in the country and (having patented an innovative production technique for rolled plate glass) produced much of the glass used in the construction of the Crystal Palace in 1851. A third of all UK-manufactured plate glass was produced at Hartley's by this time. Other manufacturers included the Cornhill Flint Glassworks (established at Southwick in 1865), which went on to specialise in pressed glass, as did the Wear Flint Glassworks (which had originally been established in 1697). In addition to the plate glass and pressed glass manufacturers there were 16 bottle works on the Wear in the 1850s, with the capacity to produce between 60 and 70,000 bottles a day.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1848 George Hudson's York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway built a passenger terminus, Monkwearmouth Station, just north of Wearmouth Bridge; and south of the river another passenger terminus, in Fawcett Street, in 1853. Later, Thomas Elliot Harrison (chief engineer to the North Eastern Railway) made plans to carry the railway across the river; the Wearmouth Railway Bridge (reputedly 'the largest Hog-Back iron girder bridge in the world') opened in 1879.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1854 the Londonderry, Seaham & Sunderland Railway opened linking collieries to a separate set of staiths at Hudson Dock South, it also provided a passenger service from Sunderland to Seaham Harbour.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1886–90 a new Town Hall was built in Fawcett Street, just to the east of the railway station, designed by Brightwen Binyon. By 1889 two million tons of coal per year was passing through Hudson Dock, while to the south of Hendon Dock, the Wear Fuel Works distilled coal tar to produce pitch, oil and other products.


title: Sunderland

text: The 20th century saw Sunderland A.F.C. established as the Wearside area's greatest claim to sporting fame. Founded in 1879 as Sunderland and District Teachers A.F.C. by schoolmaster James Allan, Sunderland joined The Football League for the 1890–91 season.


title: Sunderland

text: From 1900 – 1919 an electric tram system was built and was gradually replaced by buses during the 1940s before being ended in 1954. In 1909 the Queen Alexandra Bridge was built, linking Deptford and Southwick.


title: Sunderland

text: The First World War increased shipbuilding, leading to being a target in a 1916 Zeppelin raid and Monkwearmouth struck on 1 April 1916 and 22 people died. Over 25,000 men from a population of 151,000 served in the armed forces during the war.


title: Sunderland

text: Through the Great Depression of the 1930s, shipbuilding dramatically declined: shipyards on the Wear went from 15 in 1921 to six in 1937. The small yards of J. Blumer & Son (at North Dock) and the Sunderland Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. (at Hudson Dock) both closed in the 1920s, and other yards were closed down by National Shipbuilders Securities in the 1930s.


title: Sunderland

text: By 1936 the Sunderland AFC had been league champions on five occasions. They won their first FA Cup in 1937.


title: Sunderland

text: With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Sunderland was a key target of the German Luftwaffe bombing, 267 people died and local industries destroyed. and damage or destruction to 4,000 homes.


title: Sunderland

text: Many old buildings remain despite the bombing that occurred during World War II. Religious buildings include Holy Trinity Church, built in 1719 for an independent Sunderland, St Michael's Church, built as Bishopwearmouth Parish Church and now known as Sunderland Minster and St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth, part of which dates from AD 674, and was the original monastery. St Andrew's Church, Roker, known as the "Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts Movement", contains work by William Morris, Ernest Gimson and Eric Gill. St Mary's Catholic Church is the earliest surviving Gothic revival church in the city. After the war, more housing was built and the town's boundaries expanded in 1967 when neighbouring Ryhope, Silksworth, Herrington, South Hylton and Castletown were incorporated. Sunderland AFC one their only post-World War II major honour in 1973 when they won a second FA Cup.


title: Sunderland

text: Shipbuilding ended in 1988 and coal-mining in 1993 after a mid-1980s unemployment crisis with 20 per cent of the local workforce unemployed in the town.


title: Sunderland

text: Electronic, chemical, paper and motor manufacturing as well as the service sector expanded during the 1980s and 1990s to fill unemployment from heavy industry. In 1986 Japanese car manufacturer Nissan opened its Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK factory in Washington, which has since become the UK's largest car factory.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland received city status in 1992. Like many cities, Sunderland comprises a number of areas with their own distinct histories, Fulwell, Monkwearmouth, Roker, and Southwick on the northern side of the Wear, and Bishopwearmouth and Hendon to the south. From 1990, the Wear’s riverbanks were regenerated with new housing, retail parks and business centres on former shipbuilding sites; the National Glass Centre, a new University of Sunderland campus on the St Peter's site were also built. The Vaux Breweries site was clear on the north west fringe of the city centre for further development opportunities in the city centre.


title: Sunderland

text: After 99 years at the historic Roker Park stadium, the club moved to the 42,000-seat Stadium of Light on the banks of the River Wear in 1997. At the time, it was the largest stadium built by an English football club since the 1920s, and has since been expanded to hold nearly 50,000 seated spectators.


title: Sunderland

text: On 24 March 2004, the city adopted Benedict Biscop as its patron saint. In 2018 the city was ranked as the best to live and work in the UK by the finance firm OneFamily. In the same year, the city was ranked as one of the top 10 safest in the UK.


title: Sunderland

text: The 1970 Sunderland Civic Centre closed in November 2021, following the opening of a new City Hall on the former Vaux Brewery redevelopment site.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland was created a municipal borough of County Durham in 1835. Under the Local Government Act 1888, it was given the status of a County Borough, independent from county council control. Sunderland has the motto of "Nil Desperandum Auspice Deo" or "Under God's guidance we may never despair".


title: Sunderland

text: In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the county borough was abolished and its area combined with that of other districts to form the Metropolitan Borough of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear metropolitan county. The Northumbria Police (covering Tyne and Wear and Northumberland) and Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service (covering the county only) were also formed.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1986, Tyne and Wear County Council was abolished, and Sunderland became a unitary authority in all but name, once again independent from county council control but still in the county with joint bodies such as a passenger transport executive covering the area. The metropolitan borough was granted city status after winning a competition in 1992 to celebrate the Queen's 40th year on the throne.


title: Sunderland

text: The council area's population (taken at the 2011 Census) was 275,506. Since 2014, the City of Sunderland has been a member of the North East Combined Authority; initially Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and the County Durham District. The Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, branded as Nexus, became an executive body of the North East Combined Authority. The combined authority split along the Tyne in 2018 with the borough remaining with Gateshead, South Tyneside and the County Durham District. The split may be resolved with talks to recombine the two combined authorities, including the County Durham district or (covering same area as the local police force) without the district.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum on European Union membership by 61% of the vote; an unexpectedly high margin. The "New Statesman" and "The Daily Telegraph" have described Sunderland as the poster city for Brexit.


title: Sunderland

text: For decades, Sunderland has been an electoral stronghold of the Labour Party. Sunderland is represented in the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom by three Labour Members of Parliament; Bridget Phillipson since 2020, Julie Elliott since 2017 and Sharon Hodgson.


title: Sunderland

text: Much of the city is located on a low range of hills running parallel to the coast. On average, it is around 80 metres above sea level. Sunderland is divided by the River Wear which passes through the middle of the city in a deeply incised valley, part of which is known as the Hylton gorge. Several smaller bodies of water, such as Hendon Burn and the Barnes Burn, run through the suburbs. The three road bridges connecting the north and south portions of the city are the Queen Alexandra Bridge at Pallion, the Wearmouth Bridge just to the north of the city centre and most recently the Northern Spire Bridge between Castletown and Pallion. To the west of the city, the Hylton Viaduct carries the A19 dual-carriageway over the Wear (see map below).


title: Sunderland

text: The city possesses a number of public parks. Several of these are historic, including Mowbray Park, Roker Park and Barnes Park. In the early 2000s, Herrington Country Park was opened opposite Penshaw Monument. The city's parks have secured several awards for its commitment to preserving natural facilities, receiving the Britain in Bloom collective in 1993, 1997 and 2000.


title: Sunderland

text: Most of the suburbs of Sunderland are situated towards the west of the city centre with 70% of its population living on the south side of the river and 30% on the north side. The city extends to the seafront at Hendon and Ryhope in the south and Seaburn in the north.


title: Sunderland

text: In the 2011 census, there were three definitions of Sunderland. The built-up area subdivision follows the boundaries of what is considered Sunderland itself; the built-up area, is also known as Wearside, including Chester-le-Street and third is the council area which is similar in size to Wearside, without Chester-le-Street. The latter two include other surrounding towns and villages, the most notable being the town of Washington.


title: Sunderland

text: The city is bounded by the Tyne & Wear Green Belt, with its portion in much of its surrounding rural area of the borough. It is a part of the local development plan, of which its stated aims are as follows:


title: Sunderland

text: In the Sunderland borough boundary, as well as the aforementioned areas, landscape features and facilities such as much of the River Don and Wear basins, the George Washington Hotel Golf and Spa complex, Sharpley Golf Course, Herrington Country Park, Houghton Quarry and Penshaw Hill are within the green belt area.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland has a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb"). Its location in the rain shadow of the Pennines, as well as other mountain ranges to the west, such as those of the Lake District and southwestern Scotland, make Sunderland one of the least rainy cities of Northern England. The climate is heavily moderated by the adjacent North Sea, giving it cool summers, and winters that are mild considering its latitude. The closest weather station is in Tynemouth, about north of Sunderland. As a result, Sunderland's coastline is likely slightly milder given the more southerly position. Another relatively nearby weather station in Durham has warmer summer days and colder winter nights courtesy of its inland position.


title: Sunderland

text: At 3,874 hectares, Sunderland is the 45th largest urban area in England by measure of area, with a population density of 45.88 people per hectare.


title: Sunderland

text: According to statistics based on the 2001 census, 60% of homes in the Sunderland metropolitan area are owner occupied, with an average household size of 2.4 people. Three percent of the homes have no permanent residents.


title: Sunderland

text: The most ethnically diverse ward of the city was the (now defunct) Thornholme area which had a population of 10,214 in 2001. This ward, which included Eden Vale, Thornhill, as well as parts of Hendon, Ashbrooke and the city centre, has long been the focus of Wearside's Bangladeshi community. In Thornholme, 89.4% are white (86.3% White British), 7.8% are Asian and 1.3% are mixed-race. Today, the Barnes ward, which contains part of former Thornholme ward, has the highest percentage (5.4%) of Bangladeshi residents in the city, with people of this ethnicity being the ward's only significant ethnic minority. The 2001 census also recorded a substantial concentration of Greek nationals, living mainly in Central and Thornholme wards. The least ethnically diverse wards are in the north of the city. The area of Castletown is made up of 99.3% white, 0.4% Asian and 0.2% mixed-race.


title: Sunderland

text: The Sunderland USD had a population of 174,286 in 2011 compared with 275,506 for the wider city. Both of these figures are a decrease compared with 2001 figures that showed the Sunderland USD had a population of 182,758 compared with 280,807 for the wider city.


title: Sunderland

text: In 2011, the Millfield ward, which contains the western half of the city centre, was the most ethnically diverse ward in Sunderland. Millfield is a multiracial area with large Indian and Bangladeshi communities, being the centre of Wearside's Bangladeshi community along with neighbouring Barnes. The ward's ethnicity was, in 2011, 76.4% White (73.5% White British), 17.6% Asian and 2.5% Black. Other wards with high ethnic minority populations include Hendon, Barnes, St Michael's and St Peter's. In 2011, the least ethnically diverse ward was the Northside suburb Redhill which was 99.0% White (98.3% White British), 0.3% Asian and 0.1% Black.


title: Sunderland

text: Here is a table comparing Sunderland and the wider City of Sunderland Metropolitan Borough as well as North East England.


title: Sunderland

text: The Sunderland Urban Subdivision is made up of all the wards listed on the table on the right hand side. In the Sunderland Urban Subdivision, 6.6% of the population were from an ethnic minority group (non white British) compared with 5.2% in the surrounding borough. Sunderland is less ethnically diverse than Gateshead and South Shields, mainly because of many outlying suburbs to the south, north and west of the city such as St Chad's, Southwick and Fulwell which have very high White British populations. The Sunderland Central Parliament constituency largely omits these areas. However, in 2001, the Sunderland USD was 96.6% White British, so the ethnic minority population is increasing.


title: Sunderland

text: The area is part of the Anglican Diocese of Durham. It has been in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle since the Catholic hierarchy was restored in 1850. The 2011 census recorded that 70.2% of the population identified as Christian, 1.32% as Muslim, 0.29% as Sikh, 0.22% as Hindu, 0.19% as Buddhist, 0.02% as Jewish, and 21.90% as having no religion.


title: Sunderland

text: The Stake Center for the Sunderland Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is in Sunderland.


title: Sunderland

text: Jewish heritage in the city, once part of a thriving community, can be dated back to around 1750, when a number of Jewish merchants from across the UK and Europe settled in Sunderland, eventually forming a congregation in 1768. A rabbi from Holland was established in the city in 1790. After a rapid growth in numbers during the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Jewish community in Sunderland reached its height in the mid 1930s, when around 2,000 Jews were recorded to be living in the town. The community has been in slow decline since the mid-20th century. Many Sunderland Jews left for stronger Jewish communities in Britain, including Gateshead, or to Israel. The Jewish primary school, the Menorah School, closed in July 1983. The synagogue on Ryhope Road, opened in 1928, closed at the end of March 2006. (See also Jews and Judaism in North East England) The Jewish population of the Sunderland Metropolitan Borough is continually diminishing, as the Jewish population fell from 114 people in 2001, to 76 people in 2011.


title: Sunderland

text: In 1998, following the grant of City status to Sunderland, the erstwhile parish church of Bishopwearmouth (St Michael's) was redesignated as Sunderland Minster with a city-wide role. It was believed to have been the first creation of a minster church in England since the Reformation.


title: Sunderland

text: The Reverend Alexander Boddy (1854–1930) was appointed vicar of All Saints' Church, Monkwearmouth in 1884. During his ministry at Monkwearmouth, Boddy was influenced by the 1904–1905 Welsh revival and also by the British-born Norwegian preacher Thomas Ball Barratt. In the early years of the 20th century All Saints, Monkwearmouth became an important centre for the development of the Pentecostal Movement in Britain.


title: Sunderland

text: Since the mid-1980s Sunderland has undergone massive regeneration, particularly around the City Centre and the river corridor, following the industrial decline of the 1970s and early 1980s.


title: Sunderland

text: In the mid-1980s, Sunderland's economic situation began to improve following the collapse of the local shipbuilding industry. Japanese car manufacturer Nissan opened the Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK factory in 1986, and the first Nissan Bluebird car was produced later that year. The factory and its supplier companies remain the largest employers in the region, with current cars produced there including the Nissan Qashqai, the Nissan Juke and the electric Nissan LEAF. As of 2012 over 500,000 cars are produced annually, and it is the UK's largest car factory.


title: Sunderland

text: Also in the late 1980s, new service industries moved into sites such as the Doxford International Business Park in the south west of the city, attracting national and international companies. Sunderland was named in the shortlist of the top seven "intelligent cities" in the world for the use of information technology, in 2004 and 2005.


title: Sunderland

text: The former shipyards along the Wear were transformed with a mixture of residential, commercial and leisure facilities including St Peter's Campus of the University of Sunderland, University accommodation along the Fish Quay on the South side of the river, the North Haven housing and marina development, the National Glass Centre, the Stadium of Light and Hylton Riverside Retail Park. Also in 2007, the Echo 24 luxury apartments opened on Pann's Bank overlooking the river. In 2008 the Sunderland Aquatic Centre opened adjacent to the Stadium of Light, containing the only Olympic-size swimming pool between Leeds and Edinburgh. In 2000, the Bridges shopping centre was extended towards Crowtree Road and the former Central Bus Station, attracting national chain stores. This was followed by adjacent redevelopments on Park Lane.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland Corporation's massive post-war housing estate developments at Farringdon, Pennywell and Grindon have all passed into the ownership of Gentoo Group (previously 'Sunderland Housing Group'), a private company and a Registered Social Landlord.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland A.F.C. has been a major symbol of the area and a contributor to the local economy since the late 19th century. The club was one of the most successful and best supported clubs in the English game during this era, with its home at Roker Park holding more than 70,000 spectators at its peak. However, the FA Cup triumph of 1973 would prove to be the club's only postwar major trophy to date, and after its relegation in 1958 the club frequently bounced between the top two divisions of English football, and in 1987 and again in 2018 suffered relegation to the third tier of English football. The club played at Roker Park for 99 years until the completion of the new Stadium of Light at Monkwearmouth on the banks of the River Wear in 1997. The new stadium seated more than 42,000 on its completion, and has since been expanded to hold some 49,000 spectators. Sunderland's relatively high attendances have been a major boost to the local economy – averaging at more than 30,000 even during the club's current spell in the third tier of English football.


title: Sunderland

text: In 2004, redevelopment work began in the Sunniside area in the east-end of the city centre, including a multiplex cinema, a multi-storey car park, restaurants, a casino and tenpin bowling. Originally the River Quarter, the site was renamed Limelight in 2005, and renamed in 2008, when it became Sunniside Leisure. Sunniside Gardens were landscaped, and a number of new cafes, bars and restaurants were opened. Up-market residential apartments were developed, including the Echo 24 building.


title: Sunderland

text: Sunderland City Council's Unitary Development Plan (UDP) outlines ambitious regeneration plans for a number of sites around the city. The plans are supported by Sunderland Arc, an urban regeneration company funded by the City council, One NorthEast and the Homes and Communities Agency.


title: Sunderland

text: Following the closure of the Vaux brewery in 1999, a brownfield site lay dormant in the centre of Sunderland. The land was subject to dispute between supermarket chain Tesco, who bought the site in 2001, and Sunderland arc, who submitted plans for its redevelopment in 2002. During formal negotiations, Tesco stated they would be willing to sell the land to arc, if an alternative city centre site could be found. Possibilities include Holmeside Triangle, and the Sunderland Retail Park in Roker. Arc originally hoped to begin development in 2010. Arc's plans for the site were approved by the Secretary of State in 2007, and included extensive office space, hotels, leisure and retail units, residential apartments and a new £50 m Crown and Magistrates' court, along with a central public arcade located under an expansive glass canopy. It was hoped an "evening economy" could be encouraged, to complement the city's nightlife. In 2013 in the area opposite the Vaux site, Sunderland City Council announced the Keel Square project, a new public space designed to commemorate Sunderand's maritime heritage, which was completed in May 2015. Construction commenced in 2014.


title: Sunderland

text: Redevelopment of the Monkwearmouth Colliery site, which sits on the north bank of the river Wear opposite the Vaux site, began in the mid-1990s with the creation of the Stadium of Light. In 2008, it was joined by the Sunderland Aquatic Centre. The Sheepfolds industrial estate occupies a large area of land between the Stadium and the Wearmouth Bridge. Sunderland Arc were in the process of purchasing land in the Sheepfolds, with a view to relocate the businesses and redevelop the site. The emphasis of development plans included further sporting facilities, in order to create a "Sports Village". Other plans included a hotel, residential accommodation, and a footbridge linking the site with the Vaux development.


title: Sunderland

text: The Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor (SSTC) is a proposed transport link from the A19, through the city centre, to the port. A major phase of the plan was the creation of a new bridge, the Northern Spire Bridge, which links the A1231 Wessington Way on the north of the river with the Grove site in Pallion, on the south of the river.