title: Ravi Shankar (spiritual leader)

text: In 2012, Ravi Shankar, while attending a function in Jaipur, claimed that some Indian government schools are breeding grounds for Naxalism, a movement of militant communist groups in India declared to be terrorist organisations. "All government schools and colleges should be privatised. The government should not run any school. It's often found that children from government schools get into Naxalism and violence. Children from private schools don't get into this," he was quoted as saying by media reports. Later, Shankar issued a clarification that he didn't mean that all government schools breed Naxalism. More clarification followed on his Twitter account: "I specifically referred to sick government schools in Naxal affected areas. Many who have turned to Naxalism have come from these schools. I did not say all Govt schools (where lakhs study) breed Naxalism. Great talents have emerged from these schools & I would never generalize." In March 2018, he faced criticism from political leaders for his commentary, where he said, India will turn into Syria if the Ram temple issue is not resolved soon.


title: Rick Stanton

text: Richard William Stanton, (born 1961) is a British civilian cave diver who specialises in rescues through the Cave Rescue Organisation and the British Cave Rescue Council. He has been called "one of the world's most accomplished cave-divers", "the face of British cave diving," and "the best cave diver in Europe". Stanton has lived in Coventry for many years, and was formerly a firefighter with the West Midlands Fire Service for 25 years prior to his retirement. In 2018 he played a leading role in the Tham Luang cave rescue and was awarded the George Medal in the Civilian Gallantry List.


title: Rick Stanton

text: Stanton was born in 1961 and grew up in Epping Forest District in Essex. He attributes his interest in cave diving to a television programme he watched as a teenager, "The Underground Eiger", saying, "After watching it, I just knew that cave-diving was for me." Stanton studied at Aston University, where he joined both the caving and the diving clubs. He began as a self-taught diver in the River Lune in Cumbria and Lancashire.


title: Rick Stanton

text: Stanton has lived in Coventry for many years, and was formerly a firefighter with the West Midlands Fire Service for 25 years prior to his retirement.


title: Rick Stanton

text: In 2004 he was involved in the rescue of six British cavers who were trapped in a cave at the Alpazat caverns in Mexico for eight days. Stanton was also part of a team that attempted a cave rescue of Eric Establie, in the Dragonnière Gaud Cave near Labastide-de-Virac in the Ardèche region of France, in 2010 which was ultimately unsuccessful.


title: Rick Stanton

text: In 2011, Stanton assisted in the recovery of the body of Polish cave diver Artur Kozłowski from Pollonora cave at Kiltartan, Ireland.


title: Rick Stanton

text: Norwegian authorities asked him to assist to recover the bodies of two Finnish divers from Jordbrugrotta in 2014, but after diving down to the site he and his colleagues deemed the operation too risky. He had completed another recovery there in 2006.


title: Rick Stanton

text: After locating and participating in the rescue of the missing team and its coach, Stanton said that he and the other cave divers involved were not heroes, saying, "We’re just using a very unique skill set, which we normally use for our own interest and sometimes we’re able to use that to give something back to the community."


title: Rick Stanton

text: Stanton later said: "I think I hold great pride in what we did. You could say it’s justification for the dedication I put forward into a ridiculous minority sport that no one ever took seriously."


title: Rick Stanton

text: In 2004 Stanton and Volanthen set a world record for greatest depth achieved in a British cave, cave diving at Wookey Hole in Somerset. In 2010 Stanton, Volanthen, Jason Mallinson, and René Houben set a world record for longest cave penetration dive, obtaining in the Pozo Azul cave system in the Rudrón Valley in Spain.


title: Rick Stanton

text: Stanton is a technical diver, developing his own diving gear to great effect. He developed two closed-circuit rebreather units; this novel technology has been "instrumental in his achieving cave diving depth records around the world." One modification was to allow the rebreather to be worn on the side of the body rather than the chest or back. This is advantageous in fitting through smaller spaces. He builds prototypes of his designs and tests them in swimming pools before using them in caves.


title: Rick Stanton

text: He also uses underwater scooters to dive more efficiently, travelling greater distances while conserving energy and oxygen supplies.


title: Rick Stanton

text: Stanton has been called "one of the world's most accomplished cave-divers", "the face of British cave diving," and "the best cave diver in Europe".


title: Rick Stanton

text: In 2008 Stanton received the EUROTEK "Diver of the Conference Award" for his "significant contribution to advanced and technical diving."


title: Rick Stanton

text: Stanton's rescue attempt of a diver in a French cave, and assistance in identifying the location of that diver's body, earned him the Royal Humane Society's bronze medal in 2012. In 2021 Stanton also received the 'Hero of the Year' award at the West Midland Fire Service's Aspire Awards.


title: Rick Stanton

text: Stanton was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours, "For services to Local Government".


title: Rick Stanton

text: In November 2018, Stanton and five other members of the British cave rescue team were given the 2018 Pride of Britain Award for "Outstanding Bravery" for the Tham Luang incident. The rescued children attended the award ceremony, in London. On 28 December 2018 it was announced that Stanton and Volanthen would receive the George Medal in the 2019 New Year Honours for their roles at Tham Luang. Three other members of their team were appointed MBEs and two were awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal.


title: Rick Stanton

text: On 21 November 2021 explorer Mark Wood, Chairman of the Great Britain and Ireland Explorers Club Chapter, awarded Stanton a chapter coin in recognition of the role he played in the 2018 Thai cave rescue.


title: Caffè Americano

text: Caffè Americano (also known as Americano or American; ; ) is a type of coffee drink prepared by diluting an espresso with hot water, giving it a similar strength to, but different flavor from, traditionally brewed coffee. Its strength varies with the number of shots of espresso and amount of water added. The name is also spelled with varying capitalization and use of diacritics: e.g., café americano.


title: Caffè Americano

text: In Italy, "caffè americano" may mean either espresso with hot water or long-filtered coffee, but the latter is more precisely called ("café in the American style").


title: Caffè Americano

text: "Americano" means "American" in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. It entered the English language from Italian in the 1970s. "Caffè Americano" specifically is Italian for "American coffee". There is a popular belief that the name has its origins in World War II when American G.I.s in Italy diluted espresso with hot water to approximate the coffee to which they were accustomed.


title: Caffè Americano

text: The drink consists of a single or double shot of espresso brewed with added water. Typically in the UK (and in Italy) between of hot water is added to the double espresso.


title: Caffè Americano

text: Long Black is an Australasian term for a drink similar to the Americano (in contrast to Short Black for espresso), with an emphasis being placed on the order of preparation, adding water to the cup first before pouring the espresso on top.


title: Caffè Americano

text: In the western U.S., "Italiano" sometimes refers to a short Americano with equal amounts of espresso and water.


title: Caffè Americano

text: The hot water can be drawn directly from the same espresso machine that is used to brew the espresso, or from a separate water heater or kettle. Using the same heater makes a second one unnecessary, and the water can be drawn directly into the glass, either before (for a Long Black) or after (for an Americano) the espresso. Some espresso machines have a separate hot water spout for this purpose, while on others, the steam wand dispenses it. Using a separate water heater is more practical in a commercial setting, as it frees the machine for other baristas, avoids disrupting the brew water's temperature, and reduces wear on specialized equipment.


title: Caffè Americano

text: Americanos—particularly short, long-black-style Americanos—are also used within artisanal espresso preparation for beans that produce strong espresso. This is particularly used for single origin espresso, where many find that undiluted espresso shots can prove overpowering; and with lighter coffees and roasts not generally associated with espresso, such as beans of Ethiopian or Sumatran origins. For this preparation, generally a ratio of 1:1 espresso to water is used, to prevent excess dilution, with the espresso pulled directly into a cup with existing water to minimize disruption to the crema.


title: Caffè Americano

text: The "iced americano" is made by combining espresso with cold water instead of hot water. A "lungo" is made by extracting an espresso shot for longer giving more volume, but also extracting some bitter flavours. A "caffè crema" is also made by extracting an espresso shot significantly longer than a lungo. A "red eye" is made with drip coffee instead of hot water, and may be called a shot in the dark.


title: Caffè Americano

text: Iced americano is the most popular menu at coffee shops in Korea. Starbucks' most popular drink is iced Americano, and many customers order iced Americano even in winter, according to a survey by Starbucks Korea. there is also a buzzword related to iced Americano in Korea.


title: Caffè Americano

text: It’s the word Koreans shortened the word “Iced Americano,” which sounds like pronounces Ah-Ah in Korean. AH-ICED. AH-MERICANO. When ordering iced Americano at coffee shops in Korea, even if it is shortened to "Ah-AH", most cafe employees know that it means iced Americano.


title: Caffè Americano

text: It is an abbreviation of Korean, "I drink iced Americano even if I freeze to death." "Eol-Juk-ah" began with a declaration posted on Twitter in 2018. The tweet united people who enjoyed iced drinks even in the winter. Since the outbreak of the buzzword, Starbucks' sales of iced Americano that year have increased by 30% compared to December last year, and by 40% in January 2019. The buzzword "EOL-JUK-AH" has created unconscious tastes and turned them into a consumer movement.


title: Caffè Americano

text: Why do koreans like iced americano? First of all, Koreans value quenching their thirst when drinking coffee. enjoy drinking cold drinks because warm drinks cannot satisfy thirst. Second, many Koreans think of coffee as a labor drink that helps them concentrate on their work. Since it is a labor drink, rather than drinking slowly, it is preferred to drink iced coffee that can be drunk quickly because it has to have a quick awakening effect by drinking it quickly. Third, iced Americano is becoming a drink for trendy and young people due to newly coined words such as "EOL-JUK-AH" and "AH-AH". Also When manufactured, iced Americano stands out due to the harmony of the taste or aesthetics.


title: Caffè Americano

text: In 2016, the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev humorously proposed for the coffee style to be 'renamed' to Russiano following deterioration of relations with the United States. The proposal, though humorous, had its implementation in one of Moscow's cafés.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa (; /; Ajami: ) is a Chadic language spoken by the Hausa people in the northern half of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and Togo, and the southern half of Niger, Chad and Sudan, with significant minorities in Ivory Coast.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa is a member of the Afroasiatic language family and is the most widely spoken language within the Chadic branch of that family. Ethnologue estimated that it was spoken as a first language by some 47 million people and as a second language by another 25 million, bringing the total number of Hausa speakers to an estimated 72 million.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa belongs to the West Chadic languages subgroup of the Chadic languages group, which in turn is part of the Afroasiatic language family.


title: Hausa language

text: Native speakers of Hausa, the Hausa people, are mostly found in Southern Niger, and Northern Nigeria. Furthermore, the language is used as a lingua franca by non-native speakers in most of Northern Nigeria, Southern Niger, Northern Cameroon, Northern Ghana, Northern Benin, Northern Togo, Southern Chad and parts of Sudan).


title: Hausa language

text: In Nigeria, Hausa is dominant throughout the north, but not dominant in the states of Kwara, Kogi and Benue.


title: Hausa language

text: Cities in which Hausa is spoken include Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Daura, Gobir, Zaria, Sokoto, Birnin Kebbi, Gusau, Dutse, Hadejia, Bauchi, Misau, Gombe, Nafada, Maiduguri, Yobe, Yola, Jalingo, Jos, Lafia, Nasarawa, Minna, Kontagora, Lokoja, and Abuja.


title: Hausa language

text: In Niger, Hausa is spoken in the south, including the cities of Maradi, Diffa, Tahoua, Zinder, Tillaberi, Dosso, and Agadez.


title: Hausa language

text: In Ghana, Hausa is spoken in the north. Cities where it is spoken include Tamale, Bolgatanga, and Wa.


title: Hausa language

text: In Benin, Hausa is spoken in the north. Cities where it is spoken include Parakou, Kandi, Natitingou, and Djougou.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa presents a wide uniformity wherever it is spoken. However, linguists have identified dialect areas with a cluster of features characteristic of each one.


title: Hausa language

text: Eastern Hausa dialects include "Dauranci" in Daura, "Kananci" in Kano, "Bausanci" in Bauchi, "Gudduranci" in Katagum Misau and part of Borno, and "Hadejanci" in Hadejiya.


title: Hausa language

text: Western Hausa dialects include "Sakkwatanci" in Sokoto, "Katsinanci" in Katsina, "Arewanci" in Gobir, Adar, Kebbi, and Zanhwaranci in Zamfara, and "Kurhwayanci" in Kurfey in Niger. Katsina is transitional between Eastern and Western dialects. Sokoto is used in a variety of classical Hausa literature, and is often known as "Classical Hausa".


title: Hausa language

text: The Daura ("Dauranchi") and Kano ("Kananci") dialect are the standard. The BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale and Voice of America offer Hausa services on their international news web sites using Dauranci and Kananci. In recent language development Zazzaganci took over the innovation of writing and speaking the current Hausa language use.


title: Hausa language

text: The western to eastern Hausa dialects of "Kurhwayanci", Dam"agaram" and "Adarawa", represent the traditional northernmost limit of native Hausa communities. These are spoken in the northernmost sahel and mid-Saharan regions in west and central Niger in the Tillaberi, Tahoua, Dosso, Maradi, Agadez and Zinder regions. While mutually comprehensible with other dialects (especially "Sakkwatanci", and to a lesser extent "Gaananci"), the northernmost dialects have slight grammatical and lexical differences owing to frequent contact with the Zarma, Fula, and Tuareg groups and cultural changes owing to the geographical differences between the grassland and desert zones. These dialects also have the quality of bordering on non-tonal pitch accent dialects.


title: Hausa language

text: This link between non-tonality and geographic location is not limited to Hausa alone, but is exhibited in other northern dialects of neighbouring languages; example includes differences within the Songhay language (between the non-tonal northernmost dialects of Koyra Chiini in Timbuktu and Koyraboro Senni in Gao; and the tonal southern Zarma dialect, spoken from western Niger to northern Ghana), and within the Soninke language (between the non-tonal northernmost dialects of Imraguen and Nemadi spoken in east-central Mauritania; and the tonal southern dialects of Senegal, Mali and the Sahel).


title: Hausa language

text: The Ghanaian Hausa dialect ("Gaananci"), spoken in Ghana and Togo, is a distinct western native Hausa dialect-bloc with adequate linguistic and media resources available. Separate smaller Hausa dialects are spoken by an unknown number of Hausa further west in parts of Burkina Faso, and in the Haoussa Foulane, Badji Haoussa, Guezou Haoussa, and Ansongo districts of northeastern Mali (where it is designated as a minority language by the Malian government), but there are very little linguistic resources and research done on these particular dialects at this time.


title: Hausa language

text: Gaananci forms a separate group from other Western Hausa dialects, as it now falls outside the contiguous Hausa-dominant area, and is usually identified by the use of "c" for "ky", and "j" for "gy". This is attributed to the fact that Ghana's Hausa population descend from Hausa-Fulani traders settled in the zongo districts of major trade-towns up and down the previous Asante, Gonja and Dagomba kingdoms stretching from the sahel to coastal regions, in particular the cities of Accra (Sabon Zango, Nima), Takoradi and Cape Coast


title: Hausa language

text: Gaananci exhibits noted inflected influences from Zarma, Gur, Jula-Bambara, Akan, and Soninke, as Ghana is the westernmost area in which the Hausa language is a major lingua-franca among sahelian/Muslim West Africans, including both Ghanaian and non-Ghanaian zango migrants primarily from the northern regions, or Mali and Burkina Faso. Ghana also marks the westernmost boundary in which the Hausa people inhabit in any considerable number. Immediately west and north of Ghana (in Cote d'Ivoire, and Burkina Faso), Hausa is abruptly replaced with Dioula–Bambara as the main sahelian/Muslim lingua-franca of what become predominantly Manding areas, and native Hausa-speakers plummet to a very small urban minority.


title: Hausa language

text: Because of this, and the presence of surrounding Akan, Gbe, Gur and Mande languages, Gaananci was historically isolated from the other Hausa dialects. Despite this difference, grammatical similarities between "Sakkwatanci" and Ghanaian Hausa determine that the dialect, and the origin of the Ghanaian Hausa people themselves, are derived from the northwestern Hausa area surrounding Sokoto.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa is also widely spoken by non-native Gur, and Mandé Ghanaian Muslims, but differs from Gaananci, and rather has features consistent with non-native Hausa dialects.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa is also spoken in various parts of Cameroon and Chad, which combined the mixed dialects of Northern Nigeria and Niger. In addition, Arabic has had a great influence in the way Hausa is spoken by the native Hausa speakers in these areas.


title: Hausa language

text: In West Africa, Hausa's use as a lingua franca has given rise to a non-native pronunciation that differs vastly from native pronunciation by way of key omissions of implosive and ejective consonants present in native Hausa dialects, such as "ɗ", "ɓ" and "kʼ/ƙ", which are pronounced by non-native speakers as "d", "b" and "k" respectively. This creates confusion among non-native and native Hausa speakers, as non-native pronunciation does not distinguish words like ' ("correct") and ' ("one-by-one"). Another difference between native and non-native Hausa is the omission of vowel length in words and change in the standard tone of native Hausa dialects (ranging from native Fulani and Tuareg Hausa-speakers omitting tone altogether, to Hausa speakers with Gur or Yoruba mother tongues using additional tonal structures similar to those used in their native languages). Use of masculine and feminine gender nouns and sentence structure are usually omitted or interchanged, and many native Hausa nouns and verbs are substituted with non-native terms from local languages.


title: Hausa language

text: Non-native speakers of Hausa numbered more than 25 million and, in some areas, live close to native Hausa. It has replaced many other languages especially in the north-central and north-eastern part of Nigeria and continues to gain popularity in other parts of Africa as a result of Hausa movies and music which spread out throughout the region.


title: Hausa language

text: There are several pidgin forms of Hausa. Barikanchi was formerly used in the colonial army of Nigeria. Gibanawa is currently in widespread use in Jega in northwestern Nigeria, south of the native Hausa area.


title: Hausa language

text: The three-way contrast between palatalized velars , plain velars , and labialized velars is found only before long and short , e.g. ('grass'), ('to increase'), ('shea-nuts'). Before front vowels, only palatalized and labialized velars occur, e.g. ('jealousy') vs. ('side of body'). Before rounded vowels, only labialized velars occur, e.g. ('ringworm').


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa has glottalic consonants (implosives and ejectives) at four or five places of articulation (depending on the dialect). They require movement of the glottis during pronunciation and have a staccato sound.


title: Hausa language

text: They are written with modified versions of Latin letters. They can also be denoted with an apostrophe, either before or after depending on the letter, as shown below.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa vowels occur in five different vowel qualities, all of which can be short or long, totaling 10 monophthongs. In addition, there are four diphthongs, giving a total number of 14 vocalic phonemes.


title: Hausa language

text: In comparison with the long vowels, the short can be similar in quality to the long vowels, mid-centralized to or centralized to .


title: Hausa language

text: The short can be either similar in quality to the long , or it can be as high as , with possible intermediate pronunciations ().


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa is a tonal language. Each of its five vowels may have low tone, high tone or falling tone. In standard written Hausa, tone is not marked. In recent linguistic and pedagogical materials, tone is marked by means of diacritics.


title: Hausa language

text: Except for the Zaria and Bauchi dialects spoken south of Kano, Hausa distinguishes between masculine and feminine genders.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa, like the rest of the Chadic languages, is known for its complex, irregular pluralization of nouns. Noun plurals in Hausa are derived using a variety of morphological processes, such as suffixation, infixation, reduplication, or a combination of any of these processes. There are 20 plural classes proposed by Newman (2000).


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa marks tense differences by different sets of subject pronouns, sometimes with the pronoun combined with some additional particle. For this reason, a subject pronoun must accompany every verb in Hausa, regardless of whether the subject is known from previous context or is expressed by a noun subject.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa's modern official orthography is a Latin-based alphabet called "boko", which was introduced in the 1930s by the British colonial administration.


title: Hausa language

text: Tone and vowel length are not marked in writing. So, for example, "from" and "battle" are both written "daga". The distinction between and (which does not exist for all speakers) is not always marked.


title: Hausa language

text: Hausa has also been written in "ajami", an Arabic alphabet, since the early 17th century. The first known work to be written in Hausa is Riwayar Nabi Musa by Abdullahi Suka in the 17th century. There is no standard system of using "ajami", and different writers may use letters with different values. Short vowels are written regularly with the help of vowel marks, which are seldom used in Arabic texts other than the Quran. Many medieval Hausa manuscripts in "ajami", similar to the Timbuktu Manuscripts, have been discovered recently; some of them even describe constellations and calendars.


title: Hausa language

text: At least three other writing systems for Hausa have been proposed or "discovered". None of these are in active use beyond perhaps some individuals.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: The early Norwegian black metal scene of the 1990s is credited with creating the modern black metal genre and produced some of the most acclaimed and influential artists in extreme metal. It attracted massive media attention when it was revealed that its members had been responsible for two murders, a suicide, and a wave of church burnings in Norway.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: The scene had an ethos and the core members referred to themselves as "The Black Circle" or "Black Metal Inner Circle". It consisted primarily of young men, many of whom gathered at the record shop Helvete ("Hell") in Oslo. In interviews, they voiced extreme anti-Christian and misanthropic views, presenting themselves as a cult-like group of militant Satanists who wanted to spread terror, hatred and evil. They adopted pseudonyms and appeared in photographs wearing "corpse paint" and wielding medieval weaponry. The scene was exclusive and created boundaries around itself, incorporating only those it deemed to be "trve" or committed. Musical integrity was highly important and artists wanted black metal to remain underground and uncorrupted.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: In August 1993, several of its members were arrested and in May 1994 were convicted variously for arson, murder, assault and possession of explosives. Most showed no remorse for their actions at the time. The Norwegian media covered events closely, but the reporting was often sensationalist. Some referred to them as "Satanic terrorists" and one Norwegian TV channel interviewed a woman who claimed Satanists had sacrificed her child and killed her dog. The early Norwegian black metal scene has since been the subject of books and documentaries.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: During the 1980s, "black metal" was a loose grouping of a handful of heavy metal bands who shared Satanic lyrics, although most of the "first wave" bands referred to Satanism only for shock value. During 1990–1992, a number of Norwegian artists, who were strongly influenced by those bands, began performing and releasing a new kind of black metal music. The surge of interest and popularity that followed is often referred to as the "second wave of black metal". The Norwegian bands developed the style of their 1980s forebears as a distinct genre of heavy metal music. This was partly thanks to a new style of guitar playing developed by Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch of Stigma Diabolicum/Thorns and Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth of Mayhem, in which guitarists played full chords using all the strings of the guitar in place of power chords using only two or three strings. Gylve "Fenriz" Nagell of Darkthrone has credited them with this innovation in a number of interviews. He described it as being "derived from Bathory" and noted that "those kinds of riffs became the new order for a lot of bands in the '90s". Black metal music also became much more satanic and the term 'TRVE KVLT Black Metal' has since become the term for satanic-leaning black metal.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Visually, the dark themes of their music were complemented with corpse paint, which became a way for black metal artists to distinguish themselves from other metal bands of the time, yet some bands such as Emperor and Satyricon ceased wearing corpse paint, often citing its loss of meaning or trendiness due to use by so many bands.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: On 8 April 1991, Mayhem vocalist and lyricist Per Yngve Ohlin (known by the stage name "Dead") committed suicide via shotgun blast while alone in a house shared by the band. Fellow musicians described Dead as odd, introverted and depressed. For performances, he made himself look like a corpse and would self-harm while performing.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Dead was found by Mayhem guitarist Euronymous with his wrists and throat slit and a gunshot wound to his forehead. Before calling the police, Euronymous got a camera and photographed the body after re-arranging some items. One of these photographs was later used as the cover of a bootleg live album: "Dawn of the Black Hearts".


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Euronymous used Dead's suicide to foster Mayhem's "evil" image and claimed Dead had killed himself because black metal had become "trendy" and commercialized. He made necklaces which he claimed as being made with bits of Dead's skull and gave them to musicians he deemed worthy. There was also a false rumor that he had made a stew with bits of Dead's brain.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Mayhem bassist Jørn 'Necrobutcher' Stubberud noted that "people became more aware of the black metal scene after Dead had shot himself [...]; I think it was Dead's suicide that really changed the scene." The suicide caused a rift between Euronymous and some of his friends, especially Necrobutcher, who were disgusted by his attitude towards Dead. Some claimed Euronymous "went into a fantasy world" and "tried to be as extreme as he had talked about".


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Two other members of the scene would later commit suicide: Erik 'Grim' Brødreskift (of Immortal, Borknagar, Gorgoroth) in 1999 and Espen 'Storm' Andersen (of Strid) in 2001.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Mayhem guitarist Euronymous was "the central figure involved in the formation of the Norwegian black metal scene", which he "almost single-handedly founded". During May–June 1991, he opened a record shop called Helvete (Norwegian for "Hell"). The shop was at Schweigaards gate 56 in Oslo. Norwegian black metal musicians often met at the shop and in its basement. They included the members of Mayhem, the members of Emperor, Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes of Burzum, and Snorre "Blackthorn" Ruch of Thorns. Euronymous also founded an independent record label called Deathlike Silence Productions, which was based at Helvete. It released albums by Norwegian bands Mayhem and Burzum, Swedish bands Merciless and Abruptum, and a Japanese band Sigh. Euronymous, Varg, and Emperor guitarist Tomas "Samoth" Haugen lived in the shop at various times. Emperor drummer Bård "Faust" Eithun also lived and worked there. The shop's walls were painted black and bedecked with medieval weapons, posters of bands, and picture discs, while its window featured a polystyrene tombstone.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: During the time it was open, Helvete was the focal point of the Norwegian black metal scene. Jon "Metalion" Kristiansen, writer of the fanzine "Slayer", said that the opening of Helvete was "the creation of the whole Norwegian Black Metal scene". Daniel Ekeroth wrote in 2008,


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Those who gathered at Helvete have been referred to as the "Black Circle" or "Black Metal Inner Circle", a name allegedly invented by Euronymous. Euronymous presented the "Black Circle" as an organized, cult-like group of militant Satanists whose activities were funded by his record shop, and a 1993 "Kerrang!" article referred to them as "Satanic terrorists". Faust later said that it was "just a name that was invented for the people who hung around the shop ... there wasn't anything like members and membership cards and official meetings." Likewise, in his review of "Lucifer Rising", Varg Vikernes said, "The so-called 'Black Circle' was something Euronymous made up because he wanted to make people believe there was such a thing, but it was nonsense and never existed. The media on the other hand believed it existed for a while, but quickly stopped talking about it when they understood it was a fake rumor."


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: According to Stian "Occultus" Johannsen, the space that Euronymous rented "was far too big and the rent was too high. That's the reason why it never did well." Only a small part of the building was used for the shop itself. Euronymous shut Helvete in early 1993 when it began to draw the attention of the police and media. The store has since been reopened under the name Neseblod Records, in the same location but with much less floor space. ('Naseblod' is Norwegian for 'nosebleed'.) Many of the original artifacts still remain, and the store also identifies as a "black metal museum".


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: The Norwegian black metal scene was bitterly opposed to Christianity and organized religion as a whole. In interviews during the early 1990s, Euronymous and other members of the scene presented themselves as militant misanthropic Devil worshippers who wanted to spread hatred, sorrow and evil. They attacked the Church of Satan for being too "humane". The theistic Satanism they espoused was an inversion of Christianity. Euronymous was the key figure behind this ideology. He professed to be in favor of totalitarianism and against compassion, peace, happiness and fun. When asked why such statements were made to the press, Ihsahn of Emperor said, "I think that was very much to create fear among people." He added that the scene "wanted to be in opposition to society" and "tried to concentrate more on just being 'evil' than having a real Satanic philosophy". Vikernes said that the reason they claimed to advocate "evil" was to provoke.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: According to the book "Lords of Chaos", many who knew Euronymous say that "the extreme Satanic image he projected was, in fact, just that – a projection which bore little resemblance to his real personality." They include Necrobutcher, Kjetil Manheim, Vikernes, and Blackthorn (the latter two were convicted for his murder). Faust said that with Euronymous, "there was a lot of smoke but not so much fire." Mortiis, however, said that Euronymous "was such a devil worshipper you wouldn't believe it", and Metalion (who knew Euronymous since 1985 and considered him to be his best friend) said Euronymous "was always telling what he thought ... worshipping death and being extreme." As for the other scene members, Samuel Fridh says there is no evidence to support their early claims of being Devil worshippers, and Leif A. Lier, who led the police investigation after Euronymous's death, said he and his men had not met one Satanist. Faust said that "For some people it [Satanism] was bloody serious, but to a lot of them it was all a big hype."


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: In retrospect, Metalion wrote, "In the past, people just wrote about Satan, but now people meant it. I believe it was serious—maybe not all the Satanism, but definitely the approach to the music and the lifestyle. It was certainly more destructive than metal had been in the past." Tenebris from the Misanthropic Luciferian Order (a Swedish Satanic order) wrote that the Norwegian scene "meant a lot as long as it lasted. Back then, in 1991, things mainly concerned black metal and ideological Satanism (not so much practical Satanism, but anyway ...) ... It grew quickly to become a sort of black metal army ... and kind of stood and fell with Euronymous and his shop. Therefore, it vanished with his death in '93 ... Sadly enough, many people involved at the time betrayed their ideals and lost their interest when things fell apart. Like it was nothing more than a hype of temporary nature."


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Regarding the term "black metal", Euronymous said that it applies to any heavy metal band who are theistic Satanists and write Satanic lyrics. Such ideas were repeated by other scene members, such as Faust. At the time, bands with a style similar to Norwegian black metal, but without Satanic lyrics, tended to use other terms for their music.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Some bands in the scene were interested in pre-Christian Norway and its traditions, and there was an undercurrent of romantic nationalism in the scene. Some scene members also flirted with Nazi imagery, but this was largely an attempt to provoke. In a private letter written in the early 1990s, Euronymous claimed that "almost all" Norwegian black metal bands at the time were "more or less Nazis". He was interested in totalitarian communist states and said he wished to see people "rot under communist dictatorship". However, apart from Varg Vikernes, the scene was largely non-political.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: In 1992, members of the Norwegian black metal scene began a wave of arson attacks on Christian churches. By 1996, there had been at least 50 attacks in Norway; in every case that was solved, those responsible were black metal fans. Some of the buildings were hundreds of years old and seen as important historical landmarks. The first was Norway's Fantoft Stave Church, which was burnt to the ground in June 1992. Police believe Varg Vikernes of Burzum was responsible. The cover of Burzum's EP "Aske" ("ashes") is a photograph of the destroyed church. On 16 May 1994, Vikernes was found guilty for burning down the Holmenkollen Chapel, Skjold Church, and Åsane Church. In addition, he was found guilty for an attempted arson of a fourth church, and for the theft and storage of 150 kg of explosives. Members of the Swedish black metal scene started to burn churches as well in 1993.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: To coincide with the release of Mayhem's "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas", Vikernes and Euronymous had allegedly plotted to bomb the Nidaros Cathedral, which appears on the album cover. The musicians Faust, Samoth, (both of Emperor), and Jørn Inge Tunsberg (of Hades Almighty) were also convicted for church arsons. Those convicted for church burnings showed no remorse and described their actions as a symbolic "retaliation" against Christianity in Norway. Mayhem drummer Hellhammer said he had called for attacks on mosques and Hindu temples, on the basis that they were more foreign. Today, opinions on the church burnings differ within the black metal community. Many musicians, singers, and songwriters in the early Norwegian black metal scene, such as Infernus and Gaahl of Gorgoroth, continue to praise the church burnings, with the latter saying "there should have been more of them, and there will be more of them." Others, such as Necrobutcher and Kjetil Manheim of Mayhem and Abbath of Immortal, see the church burnings as having been futile. Manheim claimed that many arsons were "just people trying to gain acceptance" within the black metal scene. Watain vocalist Erik Danielsson respected the attacks, but said of those responsible: "the only Christianity they defeated was the last piece of Christianity within themselves. Which is a very good beginning, of course."


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: On 21 August 1992, Bård "Faust" Eithun killed Magne Andreassen, a gay man, in Lillehammer. According to Faust, while walking home at night, a man sexually proposed to him and Faust agreed to walk with him to the Olympic park. Once in the woods, Faust stabbed Andreassen 37 times, and then kicked him in the head repeatedly as he lay on the ground.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Faust claimed he felt no remorse at the time. In the late 1990s, he said of the murder, "I was outside, just waiting to get out some aggression. It's not easy to describe why it happened. It was meant to happen, and if it was this man or another man, that's not really important." Ihsahn, his bandmate in Emperor, said Faust "had been very fascinated by serial killers for a long time, and I guess he wanted to know what it's like to kill a person." The media linked the murder to black metal, Satanism and fascism. In a 2008 interview, Faust said, "I was never a Satanist or fascist in any way, but I put behind me the hatred and negativity. Those feelings just eat you up from inside."


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Police initially had no suspects, and Faust remained free for about a year. However, he told Euronymous, Vikernes and a few others what he had done. The day after the stabbing, he returned to Oslo and allegedly burnt down Holmenkollen Chapel with Vikernes and Euronymous. After Euronymous' murder in August 1993, Faust was arrested and confessed to Andreassen's murder. In 1994, he was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment, but was released in 2003.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: In January 1993, an article in one of Norway's biggest newspapers, "Bergens Tidende" ("BT"), brought the black metal scene into the media spotlight. Two friends of Vikernes interviewed him and brought the interview to the newspaper, hoping they would print it. In the anonymous interview, "Count Grishnackh" (Vikernes) claimed to have burnt the churches and killed a man in Lillehammer. "BT" journalist Finn Bjørn Tønder set up a meeting with "Count Grishnackh". The journalists were summoned to an apartment and, allegedly, warned they would be shot if the police were called. There, Vikernes and his companions told the journalists that they had burnt the churches, or knew who had done it, and warned the attacks would continue. They claimed to be Devil worshippers and said, "Our intention is to spread fear and evil."


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: They told the journalists details about the arsons that had not been released to the press and so "BT" spoke with the police before publishing it, who confirmed these details. The article was published on 20 January as the front page of the "BT". It was headlined ("We set the churches on fire") and included a photo of Vikernes, his face mostly hidden, holding two large knives. However, by the time the article was printed, Vikernes had already been arrested. The police allegedly found him by going to an address printed on a Burzum flyer, although Vikernes believes that Tønder betrayed him.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: According to Vikernes, the anonymous interview was planned by him and Euronymous with the goal of spreading fear, promoting black metal and getting more customers for Helvete. Vikernes said of the interview, "I exaggerated a lot and when the journalist left we ... had a good laugh, because he didn't seem to understand that I was pulling his leg." He added that the interview revealed nothing that could prove his involvement in any crime. Vikernes claims that, after he was arrested, "the journalist edited the interview and ... published an insane version of it the following day, without even letting me read through it." Some of the other scene members were also arrested and questioned, but all were released for lack of evidence.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Euronymous decided to shut Helvete as it began to draw the attention of the police and media. Vikernes condemned Euronymous for shutting the shop rather than taking advantage of the publicity, stating, "by doing so he also made all my efforts more or less pointless. I spent six weeks in custody because of that." Norwegian magazine "Rock Furore" published an interview with Vikernes in February 1993. In it, he said of the prison system, "It's much too nice here. It's not hell at all. In this country prisoners get a bed, toilet and shower. It's completely ridiculous. I asked the police to throw me in a real dungeon, and also encouraged them to use violence." He was released in March for lack of evidence.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Shortly after this episode, the Oslo police dispatched its Church Fire Group to Bergen, where they set up a makeshift headquarters in the Hotel Norge. According to "Lords of Chaos", citing a police report, Vikernes knocked on their door and "virtually forced his way into the suite". He was "dressed in chain mail, carrying two large knives in his belt, and flanked by the two young men who apparently behaved as if they were his bodyguards or henchmen." Vikernes "stated that he was fed up with being harassed by the authorities, and that the police investigation into the Black Metal scene should be stopped." When police told him he had no right to issue orders, Vikernes "took one step back and raised his right arm in a Roman salute."


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: In early 1993, animosity arose between Euronymous and Vikernes. On the night of 10 August 1993, Vikernes and Snorre 'Blackthorn' Ruch drove from Bergen to Euronymous's apartment in Oslo. When they arrived there was a confrontation and Vikernes stabbed Euronymous to death. His body was found outside the apartment with 23 cut wounds – two to the head, five to the neck, and 16 to the back.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: It has been speculated that the murder was the result of a power struggle, a financial dispute over Burzum records, or an attempt at "outdoing" the stabbing in Lillehammer. Vikernes denies this and claims he killed Euronymous in self-defense. He says Euronymous had plotted to stun him with an electroshock weapon, tie him up and torture him to death while filming the event, using a meeting about an unsigned contract to ambush him. Vikernes claims he intended to hand Euronymous the signed contract that night and "tell him to fuck off", but that Euronymous panicked and attacked him first. The self-defense story is doubted by Faust, while Necrobutcher believes Vikernes killed Euronymous due to the death threats he received from him. Necrobutcher later alleged that he also intended to murder Euronymous himself due to him tastelessly capitalizing on Dead's suicide.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: Vikernes was arrested on 19 August 1993, and many other members of the scene were taken in for questioning around the same time. Some confessed to their crimes and implicated others. In May 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison (Norway's maximum penalty) for the murder of Euronymous, the arson of four churches, and for possession of 150 kg of explosives. Two churches were burned the day he was sentenced, "presumably as a statement of symbolic support". Blackthorn was sentenced to eight years in prison for being an accomplice to the murder. That month saw the release of the Mayhem album "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas", which features Euronymous on guitar and Vikernes on bass guitar. Euronymous's family had asked Mayhem's drummer, Hellhammer, to remove the bass tracks recorded by Vikernes, but Hellhammer said, "I thought it was appropriate that the murderer and victim were on the same record." Vikernes was released from prison in 2009.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: There was a strong rivalry between Norwegian black metal and Swedish death metal scenes. Fenriz and Tchort have noted that Norwegian black metal musicians had become "fed up with the whole death metal scene" and that "death metal was very uncool in Oslo" at the time. A number of times, Euronymous sent death threats to some of the more 'mainstream' death metal groups in Europe. Allegedly, a group of Norwegian black metal fans even plotted to kidnap and murder certain Swedish death metal musicians.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: There was also rivalry between Norwegian and Finnish black metal bands. Impaled Nazarene printed "No orders from Norway accepted" and """ ('Death to the arseholes of Norway!')" on early pressings of their first album and innuendo and snarky comments were made in fanzines. Beherit's mainman 'Nuclear Holocausto' used the rivalry to play a series of telephone pranks on Mika Luttinen (of Impaled Nazarene) in which he would call him in the dead of the night playing nursery rhymes at high speed on a cassette recorder. At the time, Luttinen maintained that the messages were threats from Norwegian black metallers. The Finnish band Black Crucifixion criticized the Norwegian band Darkthrone as "trendies" due to Darkthrone originally being a death metal band who later played black metal.


title: Early Norwegian black metal scene

text: The following is a list of black metal recordings and releases by the aforesaid bands released during 1987–1993. Releases in bold are albums, while the rest are demos and extended plays.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles IV (; ; ; 14 May 1316 – 29 November 1378), also known as Charles of Luxembourg, born Wenceslaus (, ), was the first King of Bohemia to become Holy Roman Emperor. He was a member of the House of Luxembourg from his father's side and the Bohemian House of Přemyslid from his mother's side; he emphasized the latter due to his lifelong affinity for the Bohemian side of his inheritance, and also because his direct ancestors in the Přemyslid line included two saints.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He was the eldest son and heir of John of Bohemia, King of Bohemia and Count of Luxembourg, who died at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346. His mother, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, was the sister of Wenceslaus III, King of Bohemia and Poland, the last of the male Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia. Charles inherited the County of Luxembourg from his father and was elected king of the Kingdom of Bohemia. On 2 September 1347, Charles was crowned King of Bohemia.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: On 11 July 1346, the prince-electors chose him as King of the Romans ("rex Romanorum") in opposition to Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor. Charles was crowned on 26 November 1346 in Bonn. After his opponent died, he was re-elected in 1349 and crowned King of the Romans. In 1355, he was crowned King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. With his coronation as King of Burgundy in 1365, he became the personal ruler of all the kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Having played a tremendous part in the political and cultural history of the Kingdom of Bohemia, he remains a very popular figure in the Czech Republic. The Golden Bull of 1356 marked a structural change in the politics of the Holy Roman Empire. Several aspects of his legacy remain a contentious matter though. The image of Charles as a wise, pious, peace-loving king (partly constructed by Charles himself) has proved influential until this day, supported by several artistic or scholarly projects produced during Charles's reign or afterwards.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles was born to John of Bohemia of the Luxembourg dynasty and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia of the Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty in Prague. His maternal grandfather was the Bohemian King Wenceslaus II. He chose the name Charles at his confirmation in honor of his uncle, King Charles IV of France, at whose court he was resident for seven years.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles received French education and was literate and fluent in five languages: Latin, Czech, German, French, and Italian.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1331, he gained some experience of warfare in Italy with his father. At the beginning of 1333, Charles went to Lucca (Tuscany) to consolidate his rule there. In an effort to defend the city, Charles founded the nearby fortress and the town of Montecarlo (Charles' Mountain).


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: From 1333, he administered the lands of the Bohemian Crown due to his father's frequent absence and deteriorating eyesight. In 1334, Charles was named Margrave of Moravia, the traditional title for heirs to the throne. Two years later, he assumed the government of Tyrol on behalf of his brother, John Henry, and was soon actively involved in a struggle for the possession of this county.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: On 11 July 1346, in consequence of an alliance between his father and Pope Clement VI, relentless enemy of the emperor Louis IV, Charles was elected as Roman king in opposition to Louis by some of the prince-electors at Rhens. As he had previously promised to be subservient to Clement, he made extensive concessions to the pope in 1347. Confirming the papacy in the possession of vast territories, he promised to annul the acts of Louis against Clement, to take no part in Italian affairs, and to defend and protect the church.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles IV was in a very weak position in Germany. Owing to the terms of his election, he was derisively referred to as a "Priests' King" ("Pfaffenkönig"). Many bishops and nearly all of the Imperial cities remained loyal to Louis the Bavarian. Worse still, Charles backed the wrong side in the Hundred Years' War, losing his father and many of his best knights at the Battle of Crécy in August 1346, with Charles himself escaping from the field wounded.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Civil war in Germany was prevented, however, when Louis IV died on 11 October 1347, after suffering a stroke during a bear hunt. In January 1349, House of Wittelsbach partisans attempted to secure the election of Günther von Schwarzburg as king, but he attracted few supporters and was defeated by Charles at the siege of Eltville in May. Thereafter, Charles faced no direct threat to his claim to the Imperial throne.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles initially worked to secure his power base. Bohemia had remained untouched by the plague. Prague became his capital, and he rebuilt the city on the model of Paris, establishing the New Town ("Nové Město"). In 1348, he founded the Charles University in Prague, which was later named after him and was the first university in Central Europe. This served as a training ground for bureaucrats and lawyers. Soon Prague emerged as the intellectual and cultural center of Central Europe.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Having made good use of the difficulties of his opponents, Charles was again elected in Frankfurt on 17 June 1349 and re-crowned at Aachen on 25 July 1349. He was soon the undisputed ruler of the Empire. Gifts or promises had won the support of the Rhenish and Swabian towns; a marriage alliance secured the friendship of the Habsburgs; and an alliance with Rudolf II of Bavaria, Count Palatine of the Rhine, was obtained when Charles, who had become a widower in 1348, married Rudolph's daughter Anna.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1350, the king was visited at Prague by the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo, who urged him to go to Italy, where the poet Petrarch and the citizens of Florence also implored his presence. Turning a deaf ear to these entreaties, Charles kept Cola in prison for a year, and then handed him as a prisoner to Clement at Avignon.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Outside Prague, Charles attempted to expand the Bohemian crown lands, using his imperial authority to acquire fiefs in Silesia, the Upper Palatinate, and Franconia. The latter regions comprised "New Bohemia", a string of possessions intended to link Bohemia with the Luxemburg territories in the Rhineland. The Bohemian estates, however, were not willing to support Charles in these ventures. When Charles sought to codify Bohemian law in the Maiestas Carolina of 1355, he met with sharp resistance. After that point, Charles found it expedient to scale back his efforts at centralization.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 1354, Charles crossed the Alps without an army, received the Lombard crown in St. Ambrose Basilica, Milan, on 6 January 1355, and was crowned emperor at Rome by a cardinal on April 5th of the same year. His sole object appears to have been to obtain the Imperial crown in peace, in accordance with a promise previously made to Pope Clement. He only remained in the city for a few hours, in spite of the expressed wishes of the Roman people. Having virtually abandoned all the Imperial rights in Italy, the emperor re-crossed the Alps, pursued by the scornful words of Petrarch, but laden with considerable wealth. On his return, Charles was occupied with the administration of the Empire, then just recovering from the Black Death, and in 1356, he promulgated the famous Golden Bull to regulate the election of the king.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Having given Moravia to one brother, John Henry, and erected the county of Luxembourg into a duchy for another, Wenceslaus, he was unremitting in his efforts to secure other territories as compensation and to strengthen the Bohemian monarchy. To this end he purchased part of the upper Palatinate of the Rhine in 1353, and in 1367 annexed Lower Lusatia to Bohemia and bought numerous estates in various parts of Germany. On the death of Meinhard, Duke of Upper Bavaria and Count of Tyrol, in 1363, Upper Bavaria was claimed by the sons of the emperor Louis IV, and Tyrol by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria. Both claims were admitted by Charles on the understanding that if these families died out both territories should pass to the House of Luxembourg. At about the same time, he was promised the succession to the Margravate of Brandenburg, which he actually obtained for his son Wenceslaus in 1373.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Casimir III of Poland and Louis I of Hungary entered a conspiracy against Charles and managed to persuade Otto V of Bavaria to join. After the repeal of the estate contract by margrave Otto, in early July 1371, Charles IV declared hostilities and invaded Margraviate of Brandenburg; after two years of conflict, in 1373 Brandenburg became part of the Czech lands. This was when he gave the order to measure his new territory, its villages, people, and income. This was recorded in the , which was finished in 1375. Many villages were mentioned for the first time in this book, so it can provide information on how old they are. He also gained a considerable portion of Silesian territory, partly by inheritance through his third wife, Anna von Schweidnitz, daughter of Henry II, Duke of Świdnica and Catherine of Hungary. In 1365, Charles visited Pope Urban V at Avignon and undertook to escort him to Rome; on the same occasion he was crowned King of Burgundy at Arles.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: His second journey to Italy took place in 1368 when he had a meeting with Pope Urban V at Viterbo, was besieged in his palace at Siena, and left the country before the end of 1369. During his later years, the emperor took little part in German affairs beyond securing the election of his son Wenceslaus as king of the Romans in 1376, and negotiating a peace between the Swabian League of Cities and some nobles in 1378. After dividing his lands between his three sons and his nephews, he died in November 1378 at Prague, where he was buried, and where a statue was erected to his memory in 1848.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: The reign of Charles IV was characterized by a transformation in the nature of the Empire and is remembered as the Golden Age of Bohemia. He promulgated the Golden Bull of 1356 whereby the succession to the imperial title was laid down, which held for the next four centuries.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He also organized the states of the empire into peace-keeping confederations. In these, the Imperial cities figured prominently. The Swabian Landfriede confederation of 1370 was made up almost entirely of Imperial Cities. At the same time, the leagues were organized and led by the crown and its agents. As with the electors, the cities that served in these leagues were given privileges to aid in their efforts to keep the peace.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He assured his dominance over the eastern borders of the Empire through succession treaties with the Habsburgs and the purchase of Brandenburg. He also claimed imperial lordship over the crusader states of Prussia and Livonia.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: In 2005 Charles IV ranked the first in the TV show "Největší Čech", the Czech spin-off of the BBC "Greatest Britons" show.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Prague became the capital of the Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Charles IV. The name of the royal founder and patron remains on many monuments and institutions, for example Charles University, Charles Bridge, Charles Square. High Gothic Prague Castle and part of the cathedral of Saint Vitus by Peter Parler were also built under his patronage. Finally, the first flowering of manuscript painting in Prague dates from Charles's reign. In the present Czech Republic, he is still regarded as "Pater Patriae" (father of the country or "otec vlasti"), a title first coined by Adalbertus Ranconis de Ericinio at his funeral.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles also had strong ties to Nuremberg, staying within its city walls 52 times and thereby strengthening its reputation amongst German cities. Charles was the patron of the Nuremberg Frauenkirche, built between 1352 and 1362 (the architect was likely Peter Parler), where the imperial court worshipped during its stays in Nuremberg.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles's imperial policy was focused on the dynastic sphere and abandoned the lofty ideal of the Empire as a universal monarchy of Christendom. In 1353, he granted the Duchy of Luxembourg to his half-brother, Wenceslaus. He concentrated his energies chiefly on the economic and intellectual development of Bohemia, where he founded the university in 1348 and encouraged the early humanists. He corresponded with Petrarch and invited him to visit the royal residence in Prague, whilst the Italian hoped – to no avail – to see Charles move his residence to Rome and reawaken tradition of the Roman Empire.


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles's sister Bona married the eldest son of Philip VI of France, the future John II of France, in 1335. Thus, Charles was the maternal uncle of Charles V of France, who solicited his relative's advice at Metz in 1356 during the Parisian Revolt. This family connection was celebrated publicly when Charles made a solemn visit to his nephew in 1378, just months before his death. A detailed account of the occasion, enriched by many splendid miniatures, can be found in Charles V's copy of the "Grandes Chroniques de France".


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Charles was married four times. His first wife was Blanche of Valois (1316–1348), daughter of Charles, Count of Valois, and a half-sister of King Philip VI of France. They had three children:


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: He secondly married Anna of Bavaria, (1329–1353), daughter of Rudolf II, Count Palatine of the Rhine; they had one son:


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: His third wife was Anna von Schweidnitz, (1339–1362), daughter of Henry II, Duke of Świdnica and Katharina of Anjou (daughter of Charles I Robert, King of Hungary), by whom he had three children:


title: Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor

text: His fourth wife was Elizabeth of Pomerania, (1345 or 1347 – 1393), daughter of Bogislaw V, Duke of Pomerania and Elisabeth of Poland who was the daughter of King Casimir III of Poland. They had six children:


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Peter William Mayhew (19 May 1944 – 30 April 2019) was a British-American actor. He was best known for portraying Chewbacca in the "Star Wars" film series. He played the character in all of his live-action appearances from the 1977 original to 2015's "" before his retirement from the role.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Peter Mayhew was born on 19 May 1944, in Barnes, Surrey. At the age of 8, he was diagnosed with gigantism. Some news outlets have mistakenly reported that he either "[did] not have gigantism" or that he had Marfan syndrome. His peak height was .


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew gained his first acting job when the producers of "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977) discovered him from a photograph in a newspaper article about men with large feet, and cast him in the role of the Minoton.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: When casting the original "Star Wars" (1977), director George Lucas needed a tall actor who could fit the role of the hairy alien Chewbacca. He originally had in mind bodybuilder David Prowse, but Prowse chose to play Darth Vader. This led Lucas to cast Mayhew, who was working as an orderly in the A & E Dept Mayday University Hospital, Thornton Heath, Croydon. Surrey. He became aware of a casting call for "Star Wars" which was filming at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire. The tall actor was immediately cast as Chewbacca after he stood up to greet Lucas. Mayhew continued working as an orderly, at Mayday Hospital (now Croydon University Hospital), in between filming the original "Star Wars" trilogy.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew modelled his performance of Chewbacca after researching the behaviour of bears, monkeys and gorillas he saw at London Zoo. Lucas said Mayhew was "the closest any human being could be to a Wookiee: big heart, gentle nature and I learnt to always let him win". The character did not have any lines, the sounds he made being derived from sound recordings of animal noises.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew played Chewbacca in five "Star Wars" films: the original trilogy ("Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi"), "" and "". He played the role in the 1978 television film "Star Wars Holiday Special" and in a 1980 appearance on "The Muppet Show". He also recorded dialogue for the "" finale episode "Wookiee Hunt".


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew played the role in commercials and hospital appearances for sick children, and made numerous appearances as Chewbacca outside the "Star Wars" films. Mayhew, appearing as Chewbacca, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the MTV Film Awards 1997.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: He also made other media appearances outside of playing Chewbacca. He appeared on NBC's "Identity", where his identity was based on the fact that he played Chewbacca and was a frequent guest in the early days of "Slice of SciFi".


title: Peter Mayhew

text: While Mayhew portrayed Chewbacca in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", he was not in "" but was listed in the credits as "Chewbacca Consultant". Mayhew retired from playing Chewbacca due to health issues. Joonas Suotamo shared the portrayal of Chewbacca with Mayhew in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", and then completely replaced him in subsequent "Star Wars" films.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Outside "Star Wars", Mayhew appeared in the 1978 horror film "Terror", directed by Norman J. Warren. In the English version of "", he provided the voice for Susha. He also appeared in "Yesterday Was a Lie".


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew wrote two books for younger audiences: "Growing Up Giant", which explains that being different is a strength instead of a weakness, and the anti-bullying book for children "My Favorite Giant".


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Peter Mayhew married Mary Angelique "Angie" Luker (née Cigainero), a native of Texas, in 1999. The two lived in Boyd, Texas. Peter was the stepfather to Mary's three children. It was reported that his wife would head his namesake charity, the Peter Mayhew Foundation.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew became a naturalised citizen of the United States in 2005 at a ceremony in Arlington, Texas. In an interview with the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram", he joked that he did not get a medal at this ceremony either, a reference to the closing scene in "Star Wars" during which Luke Skywalker and Han Solo get medals, but Chewbacca does not. Mayhew noted in an MTV interview that although Chewbacca does not get a medal in the film, he does have the last line of dialogue, when he roars.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew underwent double knee replacement surgery in 2013, having been a full-time wheelchair user for the previous two years and still largely reliant on it at the time of filming "The Force Awakens". In July 2018, Mayhew announced via Twitter that he had successfully undergone unspecified spinal surgery to improve his mobility, and was recovering.


title: Peter Mayhew

text: Mayhew died of a heart attack on 30 April 2019, at his home in Boyd, Texas, three weeks before his 75th birthday. He was buried in Reno, Parker County, Texas, in Azleland Memorial Park and Mausoleum.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coaches, officials, franchise owners, and front-office personnel, almost all of whom made their primary contributions to the game in the National Football League (NFL).


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: As of the Class of 2022, there are a total of 362 members of the Hall of Fame. Between four and eight new inductees are normally enshrined every year. For the 2020 class, a 20-person group consisting of five modern-era players and an additional 15 members, known as the "Centennial Slate", were elected to the Hall of Fame to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NFL.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Chicago Bears have the most inductees, with 30 (36, including players with minor portion of their career with team).


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The city of Canton successfully lobbied the NFL to have the Hall of Fame built and has cited three reasons. First, the NFL was founded in Canton on September 17, , (at that time it was known as the American Professional Football Association). Second, the now-defunct Canton Bulldogs were a successful pro football team and the NFL's first repeat champion (in 1922 and 1923). Third, the Canton community held a fundraising effort that garnered nearly $400,000 () to get the Hall of Fame built. Groundbreaking for the building was held on August 11, , and the Hall of Fame was opened to the public on September 7, .


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The original building contained just two rooms, and of interior space. In April , ground was broken for the first of many expansions. This first expansion cost $620,000, and was completed on May 10, . The size was increased to by adding another room. The pro shop opened with this expansion. This was also an important milestone for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as yearly attendance passed the 200,000 mark for the first time. This was at least in some part due to the increase in popularity of professional football caused by the advent of the American Football League and its success in the final two AFL-NFL World Championship games.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: In November 1977, work began on another expansion project, costing $1,200,000. It was completed in November 1978, enlarging the gift shop and research library, while doubling the size of the theater. The total size of the hall was now , more than 2.5 times the original size.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The building remained largely unchanged until July 1993. The Hall then announced yet another expansion, costing $9,200,000, and adding a fifth room. This expansion was completed on October 1, 1995, and increased the building's size to . The most notable addition was the GameDay Stadium, which shows an NFL Films production on a Cinemascope screen.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: In 2013, the Hall of Fame completed its largest expansion and renovation to date; the total size of the hall is now .


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Hall of Fame Village, an estimated $900 million expansion project adjacent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, has completed Phase I of construction; preparations for beginning Phase II are currently underway.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Through 2022, all players in the Hall, except Buffalo Bills guard Billy Shaw, played at least some part of their professional career in the NFL; Shaw played his entire career in the American Football League (AFL) prior to the 1970 AFL–NFL merger.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Though several Hall of Famers have had AFL, Canadian Football League, World Football League, United States Football League, Arena Football League and/or Indoor Football League experience, and there is a division of the Hall devoted to alternative leagues such as these, to this point no player, coach or contributor have made the Hall without having made significant contributions to either the NFL, AFL, or All-America Football Conference.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: For CFL stars, there is a corresponding Canadian Football Hall of Fame; only one player, Warren Moon, and two coaches, Bud Grant and Marv Levy, are enshrined in both halls.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Again for the Arena Football League, there is also a corresponding Arena Football Hall of Fame; similarly, only one player, Kurt Warner, has been enshrined into both halls. The Indoor Football League, in which Terrell Owens played one season, has also established a Hall of Fame.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Chicago Bears have the most Hall of Famers among the league's franchises with either 37 or 30 enshrinees depending on whether players that only played a small portion of their careers with the team are counted.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Enshrinees are selected by a 49-person committee, largely made up of media members, officially known as the Selection Committee.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Each city that has a current NFL team sends one representative from the local media to the committee; a city with more than one franchise sends one representative for each franchise.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: There are also 15 at-large delegates, including one representative from the Pro Football Writers Association. Except for the PFWA representative, who is appointed to a two-year term, all other appointments are open-ended, and terminated only by death, incapacitation, retirement, or resignation.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: To be eligible for the nominating process, a player or coach must have been retired for at least five years; any other contributor such as a team owner or executive can be voted in at any time.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Fans may nominate any player, coach or contributor by simply writing via letter or email to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Selection Committee is then polled three times by mail (once in March, once in September, and once in October) to eventually narrow the list to 25 semifinalists. In November, the committee then selects 15 finalists by mail balloting.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: A Seniors and Contributors Committee, subcommittees of the overall Selection Committee, nominate Seniors (those players who completed their careers more than 25 years ago) and Contributors (individuals who made contributions to the game in areas other than playing or coaching). The Seniors Committee and Contributors Committee add one or two finalist(s) on alternating years, which makes a final ballot of 18 finalists under consideration by the full committee each year. Committee members are instructed to only consider a candidate's professional football contributions and to disregard all other factors.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Selection Committee then meets on "Selection Saturday", the day before each Super Bowl game to elect a new class. To be elected, a finalist must receive at least 80% support from the Board. At least four, but no more than eight, candidates are elected annually.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: In 2020, a special Blue-Ribbon Panel selected an additional 15 new members, known as the Centennial Slate, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the NFL. Among these 15 members, ten would be seniors. On January 11, during the weekend of the NFL divisional playoffs, Hall of Fame president David Baker went on the set of "The NFL Today" to personally tell Bill Cowher, who was working as an analyst on that pregame show, that he was selected as one of the members of the Centennial Slate.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: One day later, Baker went on the set of "Fox NFL Sunday" to inform Jimmy Johnson, working as an analyst on Fox's studio show, that he was also selected. The rest of the Centennial Slate members were revealed on January 15.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The remaining 13 members of the Centennial Slate elected to the Hall of Fame in 2020 are: Jim Covert, Winston Hill, Harold Carmichael, Duke Slater, Ed Sprinkle, Steve Sabol, Alex Karras, Bobby Dillon, Donnie Shell, George Young, Cliff Harris, Mac Speedie, and former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: They were enshrined in 2021 due to COVID-19, but are still considered part of the Centennial Class of 2020.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The enshrinement ceremony is the main event of the annual "Enshrinement Week Powered by Johnson Controls" that kicks off every NFL season. The celebration is held in Canton, throughout the week surrounding the enshrinement ceremony. All members of the Hall of Fame are invited to attend the annual ceremony.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Enshrinees do not go into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of a certain team. Rather, all of an enshrinee's affiliations are listed equally. While the Baseball Hall of Fame plaques generally depict each of their inductees wearing a particular club's cap (with a few exceptions, such as Catfish Hunter and Greg Maddux), the bust sculptures of each Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee make no reference to any specific team. In addition to the bust that goes on permanent display at the Hall of Fame, inductees receive a distinctive Gold Jacket, and previous inductees nearly always wear theirs when participating at the new inductee ceremonies.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Previous induction ceremonies were held during the next day (Sunday from 1999–2005, Saturday in 2006), situated on the steps of the Hall of Fame building.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Starting in 2002, the ceremony was moved to Fawcett Stadium (now Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium), where it was held from 1963 to 1965. Since 2007, the enshrinement ceremony has been held on the Saturday night, since 2017 two days after the Hall of Fame Game. In 2022, the ceremony was moved to noon ET.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Hall of Fame Game, the annual NFL preseason opener, is played in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium at Hall of Fame Village in Canton, Ohio. In 2017, the Hall of Fame Game was held for the first time on Thursday night. The preseason classic kicks off Enshrinement Week Powered by Johnson Controls and officially kicks off the NFL preseason.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Pro Football Hall of Fame museum includes a permanent exhibit recognizing the inductees of the Black College Football Hall of Fame. The two organizations partnered in 2016, also creating the Black College Football Hall of Fame Classic played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Ralph Hay Pioneer Award is an American football award given by the Pro Football Hall of Fame periodically to an individual who has made significant and innovative contributions to professional football. The award is named after Canton Bulldogs owner and National Football League founder and chief organizer Ralph Hay. It was originally called the Daniel F. Reeves Pioneer Award, named after Los Angeles Rams owner and hall of fame inductee Dan Reeves. The award is the highest and the most prestigious honor given by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, other than enshrinement. As of 2022, Steve Sabol, Art McNally, Marion Motley and Bill Willis are the only people to receive the award and also become a Hall of Fame inductee.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The small number of candidates elected each year has helped foster what some perceive as an inequality of representation at certain positions or in certain categories of player, to the exclusion of defensive players in general (defensive backs and outside linebackers in particular), special teams players, wide receivers, and those from the "seniors" category. There has also been criticism that deserving players have been overlooked because they played most or all of their careers on poor teams.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: In 2009, a "New York Times" article criticized the Hall for not including punter Ray Guy on its ballot, erroneously stating that the Hall did not have an inductee at the time representing the position (Yale Lary, who played both as a safety and punter, had been inducted in 1979, while Sammy Baugh had also punted in addition to his quarterback play; the punter position was not specialized until free substitution became widespread in the 1960s, and most punters until then also played another position). Guy was eventually inducted as part of the 2014 class for the Hall of Fame.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: The Pro Football Hall of Fame is unique among North American major league sports halls of fame in that officials have been generally excluded. Only two figures, both inducted for their work as supervisor or director of officiating as opposed to game officiating—1966 inductee Hugh "Shorty" Ray and 2022 inductee Art McNally—have been enshrined; McNally is the only inductee in the Hall to have experience as an in-game official. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and Hockey Hall of Fame have each inducted game officials as members.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Another prominent absence from the Hall is sports-journalist Howard Cosell, who has yet to either be awarded the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award or even get fully inducted despite his well-known association with "Monday Night Football"; an August 2010 "Sports Illustrated" article hints that Cosell may have even been "blacklisted" by the NFL.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: As the late 2010s approached, a number of controversial and polarizing figures began to reach eligibility for the Hall. For example, Darren Sharper's career achievements make him a candidate for the Hall, but there is debate over whether he should be inducted due to his conviction on multiple rape and drug distribution charges after he retired.


title: Pro Football Hall of Fame

text: Terrell Owens' exclusion from the Hall in his first two years of eligibility despite his strong individual statistics was a subject of public debate: while Owens was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2018, he refused to attend the enshrinement ceremony.


title: Keyboard instrument

text: A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers. The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pianos. Other keyboard instruments include celestas, which are struck idiophones operated by a keyboard, and carillons, which are usually housed in bell towers or belfries of churches or municipal buildings.


title: Keyboard instrument

text: Today, the term "keyboard" often refers to keyboard-style synthesizers. Under the fingers of a sensitive performer, the keyboard may also be used to control dynamics, phrasing, shading, articulation, and other elements of expression—depending on the design and inherent capabilities of the instrument.


title: Keyboard instrument

text: Another important use of the word "keyboard" is in historical musicology, where it means an instrument whose identity cannot be firmly established. Particularly in the 18th century, the harpsichord, the clavichord, and the early piano competed, and the same piece might be played on more than one. Hence, in a phrase such as "Mozart excelled as a keyboard player," the word "keyboard" is typically all-inclusive.


title: Keyboard instrument

text: The term keyboard classifies instruments based on how the performer plays the instrument, and not on how the sound is produced. Categories of keyboard instruments include the following families (of which this is only a partial list):


title: Keyboard instrument

text: The earliest known keyboard instrument was the Ancient Greek hydraulis, a type of pipe organ, invented in the third century BC. The keys were likely balanced and could be played with a light touch, as is clear from the reference in a Latin poem by Claudian (late 4th century), who says "magna levi detrudens murmura tactu . . . intonet," that is “let him thunder forth as he presses out mighty roarings with a light touch” ("Paneg. Manlio Theodoro," 320–22). From its invention until the fourteenth century, the organ remained the only keyboard instrument. Often, the organ did not feature a keyboard at all, but rather buttons or large levers operated by a whole hand. Almost every keyboard until the fifteenth century had seven naturals to each octave.


title: Keyboard instrument

text: The clavicymbalum, clavichord, and the harpsichord appeared during the fourteenth century—the clavichord probably being earlier. The harpsichord and clavichord were both common until the widespread adoption of the piano in the eighteenth century, after which their popularity decreased. The first template to the modern piano was introduced in 1698 in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori as the "gravicèmbalo con piano e forte" ("harpsichord with soft and loud"), also shortened to "pianoforte", as it allowed the pianist to control the dynamics by adjusting the force with which each key was struck. In its current form, the piano is a product of further developments made since the late nineteenth century and is distinct in both sound and appearance from the instruments known to earlier pianists, including Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Beginning in the twentieth century, early electromechanical instruments, such as the Ondes Martenot, began to appear as well. Later in the 20th century, electronic keyboards appeared.


title: Lana Parrilla

text: Lana Parrilla (born July 15, 1977) is an American actress. She was a regular cast member in the fifth season of the ABC sitcom "Spin City" (2000–2001) and in the fourth season of "24" (2005), and starred in "Boomtown" (2002–2003), "Windfall" (2006), "Swingtown" (2008), and as Dr. Eva Zambrano in the short-lived medical drama "Miami Medical" (2010), and as The Evil Queen / Regina Mills in the ABC fantasy drama series "Once Upon a Time" (2011–2018). Among her awards and nominations is a 2012 ALMA Award win for Outstanding TV Actress - Drama. In 2021, she played the role of Rita Castillo in the second season of "Why Women Kill".


title: Lana Parrilla

text: Parrilla was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City in 1977. Her mother, Dolores Dee Azzara, is of Sicilian ancestry (Villabate) and her father, Sam Parrilla, is a Puerto Rico-born baseball player who played one season with the Philadelphia Phillies. She is also the niece of Candice Azzara, an American Broadway and TV actress.


title: Lana Parrilla

text: In her early career, Parrilla appeared in several movies, including "Very Mean Men" (2000), "Spiders" (2000), and "Frozen Stars" (2003). She made her television debut in 1999, on the UPN sitcom "Grown Ups". In 2000, she joined the cast of the ABC comedy series "Spin City", playing Angie Ordonez for one season. She left the show in 2001. After that she joined Donnie Wahlberg and Neal McDonough in the short lived crime drama "Boomtown", for which she received the Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her portrayal of Teresa, a paramedic. Initially a success, "Boomtown" began to struggle, and Parrilla's character became a police academy rookie, to tie her more closely to the rest of the show. "Boomtown" was canceled just two episodes into its second season.


title: Lana Parrilla

text: Parrilla guest-starred in a number of television dramas, including "JAG", "Six Feet Under", "Covert Affairs", "Medium", "The Defenders" and "Chase". She had a recurring role in 2004 as Officer Janet Grafton in "NYPD Blue". In 2005, Parrilla took a recurring guest role on the fourth season of the Fox series "24" as Sarah Gavin, a Counter Terrorist Unit agent; she was made a regular cast member in the seventh episode, and her character was written out after the twelfth episode.


title: Lana Parrilla

text: In 2006, Parrilla starred in the NBC summer series "Windfall" alongside former "Boomtown" castmate Jason Gedrick. In 2007, she guest starred as Greta during the third season of ABC's "Lost" in the episodes "Greatest Hits" and "Through the Looking Glass" In 2008, she had a leading role in the Lifetime film "The Double Life of Eleanor Kendall", in which she played Nellie, a divorcee whose identity has been stolen. Also in 2008, she starred in the CBS summer series "Swingtown" as Trina Decker, a woman who is part of a swinging couple. In 2010, Parrilla had a female lead role in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced "Miami Medical" on CBS, which had a short run towards the end of the 2009–10 television season before it was canceled in July 2010. "Windfall", "Swingtown" and "Miami Medical" were all canceled after 13 episodes.


title: Lana Parrilla

text: In February 2011, she was cast as Mayor Regina Mills/The Evil Queen, in the ABC adventure fantasy drama "Once Upon a Time", created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. The series debuted in October 2011. The pilot episode was watched by 12.93 million viewers and achieved an adult 18–49 rating/share of 4.0/10 during the first season, receiving generally favorable reviews from critics. Parrilla's performance also received positive reviews from critics. In 2012 and 2013, she was regarded as a promising contender for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series category, though she did not receive a nomination. She won the TV Guide Award for Favorite Villain and the ALMA Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 2012. Parrilla also received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress on Television from the 38th Saturn Awards.


title: Lana Parrilla

text: On April 30, 2021, Parrilla released a song with Leonardo Abbate, who goes by the stage name Glovibes, called "It's Over Now". It is a remix and rearrangement of Deborah Cox's 1998 song of the same name.


title: Lana Parrilla

text: In 2022, Parilla was cast opposite Jennifer Lopez in the Netflix sci-fi thriller film "Atlas". Later that year, she was cast for the second season of Netflix legal drama series, "The Lincoln Lawyer".


title: Lana Parrilla

text: Parrilla became engaged to Alfredo Di Blasio on April 28, 2013, while traveling in Israel. They were married on July 5, 2014, in British Columbia. In April 2018, Parrilla announced on her Instagram account that she was "no longer married." and starting a "new life path."


title: Lana Parrilla

text: In 2020, Parrilla launched an online clothing company called Keep It Regal, where she sells apparel inspired by her role in "Once Upon a Time".


title: Arkan

text: Željko Ražnatović (, ; 17 April 1952 – 15 January 2000), better known as Arkan (), was a Serbian mobster, politician, sports administrator, paramilitary commander and head of the Serb paramilitary force called the Serb Volunteer Guard during the Yugoslav Wars.


title: Arkan

text: He was on Interpol's most wanted list in the 1970s and 1980s for robberies and murders committed in a number of countries across Europe, and was later indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity. Up until his assassination in January 2000, Ražnatović was the most powerful organized crime figure in the Balkans.


title: Arkan

text: Željko Ražnatović was born in Brežice, a small border town in Lower Styria, PR Slovenia, FPR Yugoslavia. His father Veljko, was born in Rijeka Crnojevića near Cetinje, and had taken part in the Partisan liberation of Priština (Kosovo) during World War II. Later on, Veljko served as a decorated officer in the SFR-Yugoslav Air Force, being highly ranked for his notable involvement in World War II. Veljko was stationed in Slovenian Styria at the time when his fourth child Željko was born.


title: Arkan

text: Infant Željko spent part of his childhood in Zagreb (SR Croatia) and Pančevo (SR Serbia), before his father's job eventually took the family to the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade (SR Serbia), which is considered his hometown. He grew up with three older sisters in a strict, militaristic patriarchal household with regular physical abuse from his father. In a 1991 interview he recalled: "He didn't really hit me in a classical sense, he'd basically grab me and slam me against the floor."


title: Arkan

text: In his youth, Ražnatović aspired to become a pilot as his father had been. Due to the highly demanding and significant positions of his parents, there appeared to be very little time in which a bond was able to be established between parents and children. Ražnatović's parents eventually divorced during his teenage years.


title: Arkan

text: Teenaged Ražnatović was arrested for the first time in 1966 for snatching women's purses around Tašmajdan Park, spending a year at a juvenile detention center not far from Belgrade. His father then sent him to the seaside town of Kotor (SR Montenegro) in order to join the Yugoslav Navy, but young Ražnatović had other plans (ending up in Paris at the age of fifteen). In 1969 he was arrested by French police and deported home, where he was sentenced to three years at the detention center in Valjevo for several burglaries. During this time he organized his own gang in the prison.


title: Arkan

text: In his youth, Ražnatović was a ward of his father's friend, the Slovenian politician and Federal Minister of the Interior, Stane Dolanc. Dolanc was chief of the State Security Administration (UDBA) and a close associate of President Josip Broz Tito. Whenever Ražnatović was in trouble, Dolanc helped him, allegedly as a reward for his services to the UDBA, as seen in the escape from the Lugano prison in 1981. Dolanc is quoted as having said: "One Arkan is worth more than the whole UDBA."


title: Arkan

text: In 1972, aged 20, Ražnatović migrated to Western Europe. Abroad, he was introduced to and kept contact with many well-known criminals from Yugoslavia, such as Ljuba Zemunac, Ranko Rubežić, Đorđe "Giška" Božović, Goran Vuković, etc., all of whom were also occasionally contracted by the UDBA, and all of whom were since assassinated or otherwise killed. Ražnatović took the nickname "Arkan" from one of his forged passports. On 28 December 1973, he was arrested in Belgium following a bank robbery, and was sentenced to ten years in prison.


title: Arkan

text: Ražnatović managed to escape from the Verviers prison on 4 July 1979. Although he was apprehended in the Netherlands on 24 October 1979, the few months he was free were enough for at least two more armed robberies in Sweden and three more in the Netherlands. Serving a seven-year sentence at a prison in Amsterdam, Ražnatović pulled off another escape on 8 May 1981 after someone slipped him a gun. Wasting no time, more robberies followed, this time in West Germany, where after less than a month of freedom he was arrested in Frankfurt on 5 June 1981 following a jewellery store stickup. In the ensuing shootout with police he was lightly wounded, resulting in his placement in the prison hospital ward. Looser security allowed Ražnatović to escape again only four days later, on 9 June, supposedly by jumping from the window, beating up the first passerby and stealing his clothing before disappearing. His final European arrest occurred in Basel, Switzerland, during a routine traffic check on 15 February 1983. However, he managed to escape again within months, this time from Thorberg prison on 27 April.


title: Arkan

text: It is widely speculated that Ražnatović was closely affiliated with the UDBA throughout his criminal career abroad. He had convictions or warrants in Belgium (bank robberies, prison escape), the Netherlands (armed robberies, prison escape), Sweden (twenty burglaries, seven bank robberies, prison escape, attempted murder), West Germany (armed robberies, prison escape), Austria, Switzerland (armed robberies, prison escape), and Italy.


title: Arkan

text: Ražnatović returned to Belgrade in May 1983, continuing his criminal career by managing a number of illegal activities. In November of that year, six months after his return, a bank in Zagreb was robbed with the thieves leaving a rose on the counter (allegedly Ražnatović's signature from his robberies in Western Europe). Looking to question Ražnatović about his whereabouts during the robbery, two policemen, members of the Secretariat of Internal Affairs' (SUP) Tenth department from the Belgrade municipality of Palilula, showed up in civilian clothing at his mother's apartment on 27 March Street in Belgrade. Ražnatović happened to not be home at the moment, so the policemen introduced themselves to his mother as "friends of her son looking to return a cash debt they owed him" and asked the woman if they could wait for him to return to the apartment. Ražnatović's mother phoned him to say that two unknown males waited for him. Ražnatović showed up with a revolver and proceeded to shoot and wound both policemen. He was detained immediately; however, barely 48 hours later, he was released. The occurrence made it clear to all observers, especially his criminal rivals, that he enjoyed protection from the highest echelons of the Yugoslav state security establishment.


title: Arkan

text: Ražnatović spent the mid-1980s running the Amadeus discothèque together with Žika Živac and Tapi Malešević. Located in the Tašmajdan neighbourhood, the nightclub was reportedly another perk of their contractual work for the UDBA.


title: Arkan

text: Moreover, Ražnatović could be seen driving around Belgrade in a pink Cadillac and gambling on roulette in casinos all over the country, from Belgrade (Hotel "Slavija") and nearby Pančevo to Sveti Stefan (Hotel Maestral on the Miločer beach) and Portorož (Hotel Metropol).