title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: On 1 February 1942, the Enigma messages to and from Atlantic U-boats, which Bletchley Park called '"Shark," became significantly different from the rest of the traffic, which they called "Dolphin."


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: This was because a new Enigma version had been brought into use. It was a development of the 3-rotor Enigma with the reflector replaced by a thin rotor and a thin reflector. Eventually, there were two fourth-position rotors that were called Beta and Gamma and two thin reflectors, Bruno and Caesar which could be used in any combination. These rotors were not advanced by the rotor to their right, in the way that rotors I to VIII were.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: The introduction of the fourth rotor did not catch Bletchley Park by surprise, because captured material dated January 1941 had made reference to its development as an adaptation of the 3-rotor machine, with the fourth rotor wheel to be a reflector wheel. Indeed, because of operator errors, the wiring of the new fourth rotor had already been worked out.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: This major challenge could not be met by using existing methods and resources for a number of reasons.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: It seemed, therefore, that effective, fast, 4-rotor bombes were the only way forward. This was an immense problem and it gave a great deal of trouble. Work on a high speed machine had been started by Wynn-Williams of the TRE late in 1941 and some nine months later Harold Keen of BTM started work independently. Early in 1942, Bletchley Park were a long way from possessing a high speed machine of any sort.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: Eventually, after a long period of being unable to decipher U-boat messages, a source of cribs was found. This was the Kurzsignale (short signals), a code which the German navy used to minimize the duration of transmissions, thereby reducing the risk of being located by high-frequency direction finding techniques. The messages were only 22 characters long and were used to report sightings of possible Allied targets. A copy of the code book had been captured from on 9 May 1941. A similar coding system was used for weather reports from U-boats, the "Wetterkurzschlüssel", (Weather Short Code Book). A copy of this had been captured from on 29 or 30 October 1942. These short signals had been used for deciphering 3-rotor Enigma messages and it was discovered that the new rotor had a neutral position at which it, and its matching reflector, behaved just like a 3-rotor Enigma reflector. This allowed messages enciphered at this neutral position to be deciphered by a 3-rotor machine, and hence deciphered by a standard bombe. Deciphered Short Signals provided good material for bombe menus for Shark. Regular deciphering of U-boat traffic restarted in December 1942.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: In 1940 Dilly Knox wanted to establish whether the Italian Navy were still using the same system that he had cracked during the Spanish Civil War; he instructed his assistants to use rodding to see whether the crib "PERX" ("per" being Italian for "for" and "X" being used to indicate a space between words) worked for the first part of the message. After three months there was no success, but Mavis Lever, a 19-year-old student, found that rodding produced "PERS" for the first four letters of one message. She then (against orders) tried beyond this and obtained "PERSONALE" (Italian for "personal"). This confirmed that the Italians were indeed using the same machines and procedures.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: The subsequent breaking of Italian naval Enigma ciphers led to substantial Allied successes. The cipher-breaking was disguised by sending a reconnaissance aircraft to the known location of a warship before attacking it, so that the Italians assumed that this was how they had been discovered. The Royal Navy's victory at the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 was considerably helped by Ultra intelligence obtained from Italian naval Enigma signals.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: Unlike the situation at Bletchley Park, the United States armed services did not share a combined cryptanalytical service. Before the US joined the war, there was collaboration with Britain, albeit with a considerable amount of caution on Britain's side because of the extreme importance of Germany and her allies not learning that its codes were being broken. Despite some worthwhile collaboration amongst the cryptanalysts, their superiors took some time to achieve a trusting relationship in which both British and American bombes were used to mutual benefit.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: In February 1941, Captain Abraham Sinkov and Lieutenant Leo Rosen of the US Army, and Lieutenants Robert Weeks and Prescott Currier of the US Navy, arrived at Bletchley Park, bringing, amongst other things, a replica of the 'Purple' cipher machine for Bletchley Park's Japanese section in Hut 7. The four returned to America after ten weeks, with a naval radio direction finding unit and many documents, including a "paper Enigma".


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: The main American response to the 4-rotor Enigma was the US Navy bombe, which was manufactured in much less constrained facilities than were available in wartime Britain. Colonel John Tiltman, who later became Deputy Director at Bletchley Park, visited the US Navy cryptanalysis office (OP-20-G) in April 1942 and recognised America's vital interest in deciphering U-boat traffic. The urgent need, doubts about the British engineering workload and slow progress prompted the US to start investigating designs for a Navy bombe, based on the full blueprints and wiring diagrams received by US Navy Lieutenants Robert Ely and Joseph Eachus at Bletchley Park in July 1942. Funding for a full, $2 million, Navy development effort was requested on 3 September 1942 and approved the following day.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: Commander Edward Travis, Deputy Director and Frank Birch, Head of the German Naval Section travelled from Bletchley Park to Washington in September 1942. With Carl Frederick Holden, US Director of Naval Communications they established, on 2 October 1942, a UK:US accord which may have "a stronger claim than BRUSA to being the forerunner of the UKUSA Agreement," being the first agreement "to establish the special Sigint relationship between the two countries," and "it set the pattern for UKUSA, in that the United States was very much the senior partner in the alliance." It established a relationship of "full collaboration" between Bletchley Park and OP-20-G.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: An all electronic solution to the problem of a fast bombe was considered, but rejected for pragmatic reasons, and a contract was let with the National Cash Register Corporation (NCR) in Dayton, Ohio. This established the United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory. Engineering development was led by NCR's Joseph Desch, a brilliant inventor and engineer. He had already been working on electronic counting devices.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: Alan Turing, who had written a memorandum to OP-20-G (probably in 1941), was seconded to the British Joint Staff Mission in Washington in December 1942, because of his exceptionally wide knowledge about the bombes and the methods of their use. He was asked to look at the bombes that were being built by NCR and at the security of certain speech cipher equipment under development at Bell Labs. He visited OP-20-G, and went to NCR in Dayton on 21 December. He was able to show that it was not necessary to build 336 Bombes, one for each possible rotor order, by utilising techniques such as Banburismus. The initial order was scaled down to 96 machines.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: The US Navy bombes used drums for the Enigma rotors in much the same way as the British bombes, but were very much faster. The first machine was completed and tested on 3 May 1943. Soon, these bombes were more available than the British bombes at Bletchley Park and its outstations, and as a consequence they were put to use for Hut 6 as well as Hut 8 work. A total of 121 Navy bombes were produced. In Alexander's "Cryptographic History of Work on German Naval Enigma", he wrote as follows.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: The US Army also produced a version of a bombe. It was physically very different from the British and US Navy bombes. A contract was signed with Bell Labs on 30 September 1942. The machine was designed to analyse 3-rotor, not 4-rotor traffic. It did not use drums to represent the Enigma rotors, using instead telephone-type relays. It could, however, handle one problem that the bombes with drums could not. The set of ten bombes consisted of a total of 144 Enigma-equivalents, each mounted on a rack approximately long high and wide. There were 12 control stations which could allocate any of the Enigma-equivalents into the desired configuration by means of plugboards. Rotor order changes did not require the mechanical process of changing drums, but was achieved in about half a minute by means of push buttons. A 3-rotor run took about 10 minutes.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: The German navy was concerned that Enigma could be compromised. Key schedules were printed in water-soluble inks so they could not be salvaged. The navy policed what its operators did and disciplined them when errors that could compromise the cipher were made. The navy minimized its exposure. For example, Enigma machines were not carried by ships that might be captured or run aground. When ships were lost in circumstances where they might be salvaged, the Germans investigated. After investigating some losses in 1940, Germany changed some message indicators.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: In April 1940, the British sank eight German destroyers in Norway. The Germans concluded that it was unlikely that the British were reading Enigma.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: In May 1941, the British deciphered some messages that gave the location of some supply ships for the battleship "Bismarck" and the cruiser "Prinz Eugen". As part of the "Operation Rheinübung" commerce raid, the Germans had assigned five tankers, two supply ships, and two scouts to support the warships. After the "Bismarck" was sunk, the British directed its forces to sink the supporting ships "Belchen", "Esso Hamburg", "Egerland", and some others. The Admiralty specifically did not target the tanker "Gedania" and the scout "Gonzenheim", figuring that sinking so many ships within one week would indicate to Germany that Britain was reading Enigma. However, by chance, British forces found those two ships and sank them. The Germans investigated, but concluded Enigma had not been breached by either seizures or brute force cryptanalysis. Nevertheless, the Germans took some steps to make Enigma more secure. Grid locations (an encoded latitude and longitude) were further disguised using digraph tables and a numeric offset. The U-boats were given their own network, "Triton", to minimize the chance of a cryptanalytic attack.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: In August 1941, the British captured . The Germans concluded the crew would have destroyed the important documents, so the cipher was safe. Even if the British had captured the materials intact and could read Enigma, the British would lose that ability when the keys changed on 1 November.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: Although Germany realized that convoys were avoiding its wolfpacks, it did not attribute that ability to reading Enigma traffic. Instead, Dönitz thought that Britain was using radar and direction finding. The "Kriegsmarine" continued to increase the number of networks to avoid superimposition attacks on Enigma. At the beginning of 1943, the "Kriegsmarine" had 13 networks.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: The "Kriegsmarine" also improved the Enigma. On 1 February 1942, it started using the four-rotor Enigma. The improved security meant that convoys no longer had as much information about the whereabouts of wolfpacks, and were therefore less able to avoid areas where they would be attacked. The increased success of wolfpack attacks following the strengthening of the encryption might have given the Germans a clue that the previous Enigma codes had been broken. However, that recognition did not happen because other things changed at the same time, the United States had entered the war and Dönitz had sent U-boats to raid the US East Coast where there were many easy targets.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: In early 1943, Dönitz was worried that the Allies were reading Enigma. Germany's own cryptanalysis of Allied communications showed surprising accuracy in its estimates of wolfpack sizes. It was concluded, however, that Allied direction finding was the source. The Germans also recovered a cavity magnetron from a downed British bomber. The conclusion was that the Enigma was secure. The Germans were still suspicious, so each submarine got its own key net in June 1944.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: By 1945, almost all German Enigma traffic (Wehrmacht military; comprising the Heer, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe; and German intelligence and security services like the Abwehr, SD, etc.) could be decrypted within a day or two, yet the Germans remained confident of its security. They openly discussed their plans and movements, handing the Allies huge amounts of information, not all of which was used effectively. For example, Rommel's actions at Kasserine Pass were clearly foreshadowed in decrypted Enigma traffic, but the information was not properly appreciated by the Americans.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: After the war, Allied TICOM project teams found and detained a considerable number of German cryptographic personnel. Among the things learned was that German cryptographers, at least, understood very well that Enigma messages might be read; they knew Enigma was not unbreakable. They just found it impossible to imagine anyone going to the immense effort required. When Abwehr personnel who had worked on Fish cryptography and Russian traffic were interned at Rosenheim around May 1945, they were not at all surprised that Enigma had been broken, only that someone had mustered all the resources in time to actually do it. Admiral Dönitz had been advised that a cryptanalytic attack was the least likely of all security problems.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: Modern computers can be used to solve Enigma, using a variety of techniques. There have been projects to decrypt some remaining messages using distributed computing. Stefan Krah led an effort in Germany to decrypt three messages intercepted in 1942 by ; the messages were published by Ralph Erskine in a 1995 letter to "Cryptologia". Two of these messages were cracked in 2006, and the final one was decrypted in 2013. As of January 2018, the Enigma@home project is working on Enigma M4 message P1030680, which was sent from U-534 on 1 May 1945.


title: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

text: On 8 May 2020, to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, GCHQ released the last Enigma message to be decrypted by codebreakers at Bletchley Park. The message was sent at 07:35 on 7 May 1945 by a German radio operator in Cuxhaven and read: "British troops entered Cuxhaven at 14:00 on 6 May 1945 - all radio broadcast will cease with immediate effect - I wish you all again the best of luck." It was immediately followed by another message: "Closing down forever - all the best - goodbye."


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: The tomb of Alexander the Great is attested in several historical accounts, but its current exact location is an enduring mystery. Following Alexander's death in Babylon, his body was initially buried in Memphis by Ptolemy I Soter, before being transferred to Alexandria, where it was reburied. Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and Augustus, among others, visited Alexander's tomb in Alexandria, though it had possibly been destroyed by the 4th century; since the 19th century, over one hundred official attempts have been made to try to identify the ancient site of Alexander's tomb in Alexandria.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: According to Quintus Curtius Rufus and Justin, Alexander asked shortly before his death to be interred in the temple of Zeus Ammon at Siwa Oasis. Alexander, who requested to be referred to and perceived as the son of Zeus Ammon, did not wish to be buried alongside his actual father at Aegae. Alexander's body was placed in a coffin of "hammered gold", according to Diodorus, which was "fitted to the body". The coffin is also mentioned by Strabo and Curtius Rufus (subsequently, in 89–90 BC the golden coffin was melted down and replaced with that of glass or crystal).


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: The possession of his body became a subject of negotiations between Perdiccas, Ptolemy I Soter, and Seleucus I Nicator.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: Alexander's wish to be interred in Siwa was not honored. In 321 BC, on its way back to Macedonia, the funerary cart with Alexander's body was hijacked in Syria by one of Alexander's generals, Ptolemy I Soter. In late 322 or early 321 BC Ptolemy diverted the body to Egypt where it was interred in Memphis, the center of Alexander's government in Egypt. While Ptolemy was in possession of Alexander's body, Perdiccas and Eumenes had Alexander's armor, diadem and royal scepter.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: According to Plutarch, who visited Alexandria, Python of Catana and Seleucus were sent to a serapeum to ask the oracle whether Alexander's body should be sent to Alexandria and the oracle answered positively. In the late 4th or early 3rd century BC Alexander's body was transferred from the Memphis tomb to Alexandria for reburial (by Ptolemy Philadelphus in , according to Pausanias). Later Ptolemy Philopator placed Alexander's body in Alexandria's communal mausoleum. The mausoleum was called the Soma or Sema, which means "body" in Greek. By 274 BC Alexander was already entombed in Alexandria. The Tomb of Alexander became the focal point for the Ptolemaic cult of Alexander the Great.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: According to Pausanias and the contemporary Parian Chronicle records for the years 321–320 BC, Ptolemy initially buried Alexander in Memphis. In the late 4th or early 3rd century BC, during the early Ptolemaic dynasty, Alexander's body was transferred from Memphis to Alexandria, where it was reburied.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: In 61 BC during the Triumph of Pompey the Great, Appian also related that "Pompey himself was borne in a chariot studded with gems, wearing, it is said, the cloak of Alexander the Great, if anyone can believe that. It seems to have been found among the possessions of Mithridates that the inhabitants of Kos had received from Cleopatra VII of Egypt."


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: In 48 BC Alexander's tomb in Alexandria was visited by Caesar. To finance her war against Octavian, Cleopatra took gold from the tomb. Shortly after the death of Cleopatra, Alexander's resting place was visited by Augustus, who is said to have placed flowers on the tomb and a golden diadem upon Alexander's head. According to Suetonius, Alexander's tomb was then partially looted by Caligula, who reportedly removed his breastplate. In 199 AD Alexander's tomb was sealed up by Septimius Severus during his visit to Alexandria. Later, in 215, some items from Alexander's tomb were relocated by Caracalla. According to chronicler John of Antioch, Caracalla removed his own tunic, ring and belt, along with some other precious items, and deposited them on the coffin.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: When John Chrysostom visited Alexandria in 400 AD, he asked to see Alexander's tomb and remarked, "his tomb even his own people know not". Later authors, such as Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam (b. 803), Al-Masudi (b. 896) and Leo the African (b. 1494), report having seen Alexander's tomb. Leo the African, who visited Alexandria as a young man, wrote: "In the midst of the ruins of Alexandria, there still remains a small edifice, built like a chapel, worthy of notice on account of a remarkable tomb held in high honor by the Mahometans; in which sepulchre, they assert, is preserved the body of Alexander the Great ... An immense crowd of strangers come thither, even from distant countries, for the sake of worshipping and doing homage to the tomb, on which they likewise frequently bestow considerable donations". George Sandys, who visited Alexandria in 1610, was reportedly shown a sepulchre there, venerated as the resting place of Alexander, although it is likely a mere repetition of the description given by Africanus.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: The Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities has officially recognized over 140 search attempts for Alexander's tomb. Mahmoud el-Falaki (1815–1885), who compiled the map of ancient Alexandria, believed Alexander's tomb is in the center of Alexandria, at the intersection of the Via Canopica (modern Horreya Avenue) and the ancient street labeled R5. Since then several other scholars such as Tasos Neroutsos, Heinrich Kiepert and Ernst von Sieglin placed the tomb in the same area. In 1850, Ambroise Schilizzi announced the discovery of alleged Alexander's mummy and tomb inside the Nabi Daniel Mosque in Alexandria. Later, in 1879, a stone worker accidentally broke through the vaulted chamber inside the basement of that mosque. Some granite monuments with an angular summit were discerned there, but the entrance was then walled up and the stone worker was asked not to disclose the incident. (The image on a Roman lamp in the National Museum of Poznań and others at the British Museum and the Hermitage Museum are interpreted by some scholars as showing Alexandria with the Soma Mausoleum pictured as a building with a pyramidal roof). In 1888, Heinrich Schliemann attempted to locate Alexander's tomb within the Nabi Daniel Mosque, but he was denied permission to excavate.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: In 1993, Triantafyllos Papazois developed the theory that it is not Philip II of Macedon who is buried in the royal tomb II at Vergina, Greece, but it is Alexander the Great together with his wife Roxanne, while his son Alexander IV is buried in tomb III. Also based on the ancient historical sources he came to the conclusion that the breastplate, the shield, the helmet and the sword found in tomb II belong to the armor of Alexander the Great.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: In 1995, Greek archaeologist Liana Souvaltzi announced that she identified one alleged tomb in Siwa with that of Alexander. The claim was put in doubt by the then general secretary of the Greek Ministry of Culture, George Thomas, who said that it was unclear whether the excavated structure is even a tomb. Thomas and members of his team said that the style of the excavated object was not, as Souvaltzi contended, Macedonian, and that the fragments of tablets they were shown did not support any of the translations provided by Souvaltzi as proof of her finding.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: In a 2011 episode of the National Geographic Channel television series "Mystery Files", Andrew Chugg claimed that Alexander the Great's body was stolen from Alexandria, Egypt, by Venetian merchants who believed it to be that of Saint Mark the Evangelist. They smuggled the remains to Venice, where they were then venerated as Saint Mark the Evangelist in St Mark's Basilica. In an article in the Egyptology journal "Kmt" (Fall 2020), Chugg showed that a 3rd century BC fragment of a high status Macedonian tomb found embedded in the foundations of St Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1960 is an exact fit as part of a tomb-casing for the sarcophagus in the British Museum, which was long venerated in Alexandria as Alexander's tomb.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: The 2014 discovery of a large Alexander-era tomb at Kasta Tomb in Amphipolis in the region of Macedonia, Greece, once again led to speculation about Alexander's final resting place. Some have speculated that it was built for Alexander but not used due to Ptolemy I Soter having seized the funeral cortege. Based on findings unearthed at the site, the excavation team argued that the tomb was a memorial dedicated to Alexander's lover Hephaestion.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: In 2019, a marble statue of Alexander was found by Greek archaeologist Calliope Limneos-Papakosta in the Shallalat Gardens, which occupy the ancient royal quarter in Alexandria.


title: Tomb of Alexander the Great

text: In 2021, Egyptian officials claimed they had found Alexander the Great’s tomb in Siwa Oasis, an urban area near the Libyan border with Egypt.


title: Median lethal dose

text: In toxicology, the median lethal dose, LD (abbreviation for "lethal dose, 50%"), LC (lethal concentration, 50%) or LCt is a toxic unit that measures the lethal dose of a toxin, radiation, or pathogen. The value of LD for a substance is the dose required to kill half the members of a tested population after a specified test duration. LD figures are frequently used as a general indicator of a substance's acute toxicity. A lower LD is indicative of increased toxicity.


title: Median lethal dose

text: The test was created by J.W. Trevan in 1927. The term semilethal dose is occasionally used in the same sense, in particular with translations of foreign language text, but can also refer to a sublethal dose. LD is usually determined by tests on animals such as laboratory mice. In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved alternative methods to LD for testing the cosmetic drug Botox without animal tests.


title: Median lethal dose

text: The LD is usually expressed as the mass of substance administered per unit mass of test subject, typically as milligrams of substance per kilogram of body mass, sometimes also stated as nanograms (suitable for botulinum), micrograms, or grams (suitable for paracetamol) per kilogram. Stating it this way allows the relative toxicity of different substances to be compared, and normalizes for the variation in the size of the animals exposed (although toxicity does not always scale simply with body mass). For substances in the environment, such as poisonous vapors or substances in water that are toxic to fish, the concentration in the environment (per cubic metre or per litre) is used, giving a value of LC. But in this case, the exposure time is important (see below).


title: Median lethal dose

text: The choice of 50% lethality as a benchmark avoids the potential for ambiguity of making measurements in the extremes and reduces the amount of testing required. However, this also means that LD is not the lethal dose for all subjects; some may be killed by much less, while others survive doses far higher than the LD. Measures such as "LD" and "LD" (dosage required to kill 1% or 99%, respectively, of the test population) are occasionally used for specific purposes.


title: Median lethal dose

text: Lethal dosage often varies depending on the method of administration; for instance, many substances are less toxic when administered orally than when intravenously administered. For this reason, LD figures are often qualified with the mode of administration, e.g., "LD i.v."


title: Median lethal dose

text: The related quantities LD/30 or LD/60 are used to refer to a dose that without treatment will be lethal to 50% of the population within (respectively) 30 or 60 days. These measures are used more commonly within radiation health physics, as survival beyond 60 days usually results in recovery.


title: Median lethal dose

text: A comparable measurement is LCt, which relates to lethal dosage from exposure, where C is concentration and t is time. It is often expressed in terms of mg-min/m. ICt is the dose that will cause incapacitation rather than death. These measures are commonly used to indicate the comparative efficacy of chemical warfare agents, and dosages are typically qualified by rates of breathing (e.g., resting = 10 L/min) for inhalation, or degree of clothing for skin penetration. The concept of Ct was first proposed by Fritz Haber and is sometimes referred to as Haber's law, which assumes that exposure to 1 minute of 100 mg/m is equivalent to 10 minutes of 10 mg/m (1 × 100 = 100, as does 10 × 10 = 100).


title: Median lethal dose

text: Some chemicals, such as hydrogen cyanide, are rapidly detoxified by the human body, and do not follow Haber's law. So, in these cases, the lethal concentration may be given simply as LC and qualified by a duration of exposure (e.g., 10 minutes). The Material Safety Data Sheets for toxic substances frequently use this form of the term even if the substance does follow Haber's law.


title: Median lethal dose

text: For disease-causing organisms, there is also a measure known as the median infective dose and dosage. The median infective dose (ID) is the number of organisms received by a person or test animal qualified by the route of administration (e.g., 1,200 org/man per oral). Because of the difficulties in counting actual organisms in a dose, infective doses may be expressed in terms of biological assay, such as the number of LDs to some test animal. In biological warfare infective dosage is the number of infective doses per cubic metre of air times the number of minutes of exposure (e.g., ICt is 100 medium doses - min/m).


title: Median lethal dose

text: As a measure of toxicity, LD is somewhat unreliable and results may vary greatly between testing facilities due to factors such as the genetic characteristics of the sample population, animal species tested, environmental factors and mode of administration.


title: Median lethal dose

text: There can be wide variability between species as well; what is relatively safe for rats may very well be extremely toxic for humans ("cf." paracetamol toxicity), and vice versa. For example, chocolate, comparatively harmless to humans, is known to be toxic to many animals. When used to test venom from venomous creatures, such as snakes, LD results may be misleading due to the physiological differences between mice, rats, and humans. Many venomous snakes are specialized predators on mice, and their venom may be adapted specifically to incapacitate mice; and mongooses may be exceptionally resistant. While most mammals have a very similar physiology, LD results may or may not have equal bearing upon every mammal species, such as humans, etc.


title: Median lethal dose

text: Note: Comparing substances (especially drugs) to each other by LD can be misleading in many cases due (in part) to differences in effective dose (ED). Therefore, it is more useful to compare such substances by therapeutic index, which is simply the ratio of LD to ED.


title: Median lethal dose

text: The following examples are listed in reference to LD values, in descending order, and accompanied by LC values, {bracketed}, when appropriate.


title: Median lethal dose

text: The LD values have a very wide range. The botulinum toxin as the most toxic substance known has an LD value of 1 ng/kg, while the most non-toxic substance water has an LD value of more than 90 g/kg. That's a difference of about 1 in 100 billion or 11 orders of magnitude. As with all measured values that differ by many orders of magnitude, a logarithmic view is advisable. Well-known examples are the indication of the earthquake strength using the Richter scale, the pH value, as a measure for the acidic or basic character of an aqueous solution or of loudness in decibels.


title: Median lethal dose

text: In this case, the negative decimal logarithm of the LD values, which is standardized in kg per kg body weight, is considered .


title: Median lethal dose

text: The dimensionless value found can be entered in a toxin scale. Water as the baseline substance is neatly 1 in the negative logarithmic toxin scale.


title: Median lethal dose

text: Animal-rights and animal-welfare groups, such as Animal Rights International, have campaigned against LD testing on animals. Several countries, including the UK, have taken steps to ban the oral LD, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) abolished the requirement for the oral test in 2001 (see Test Guideline 401, "Trends in Pharmacological Sciences" Vol 22, February 22, 2001).


title: Golden Earring

text: Golden Earring (originally known as The Tornados) was a Dutch rock band, founded in 1961 in The Hague as The Golden Earrings. They achieved worldwide fame with their international hit songs "Radar Love" in 1973, which went to number one on the Dutch charts, reached the top ten in the United Kingdom, and went to number thirteen on the United States charts, "Twilight Zone" in 1982, and "When the Lady Smiles" in 1984. During their career they had nearly 30 top-ten singles on the Dutch charts and released 25 studio albums.


title: Golden Earring

text: The band went through a number of early line-up changes, though the band reached a stable line-up in 1970, consisting of Rinus Gerritsen (bass and keyboards), George Kooymans (vocals and guitar), Barry Hay (vocals, guitar, flute and saxophone), and Cesar Zuiderwijk (drums and percussion), which remained unchanged until the band broke up in 2021 following the diagnosis of Kooymans with ALS. A number of other musicians also appeared in short stints with the band over its history as well.


title: Golden Earring

text: What became Golden Earring was formed in 1961 in The Hague by 13-year-old George Kooymans and his 15-year-old neighbor, Rinus Gerritsen. Originally called "the Tornados", the name was changed to the Golden Earrings when they discovered that the name the Tornados was already in use by another group. The name "the Golden Earrings" was taken from an instrumental called "Golden Earrings" performed by the British group the Hunters, for whom they served as opening and closing act. Initially a pop-rock band with Frans Krassenburg on lead vocals and Jaap Eggermont on drums, the Golden Earrings had a hit with their debut single "Please Go", recorded in 1965. Dissatisfied with Dutch recording studios, the band's manager and co-discoverer Fred Haayen arranged for the next single to be recorded at the Pye Records studios in London. The record cut at Pye, "That Day", reached number two on the Dutch charts. The definite article was dropped from the name in 1967, and the plural "s" was dropped in 1969.


title: Golden Earring

text: In 1968, Barry Hay joined the band, replacing Krassenburg as frontman. Two years later, the band earned their first number one hit in the Netherlands with the song "Dong Dong Diki Digi Dong". In the United States, ground work for entering the US market was being laid by East Coast FM radio disc jockey and music critic Neil Kempfer-Stocker, who is credited as the first radio DJ to play the band in the US. This single was followed by a successful psychedelic album "Eight Miles High", which featured an 19-minute version of the title track, a cover of the 1966 hit song by the Byrds. The song, played throughout their US tour, "became the core performance of their live shows", and the experience in the US led them to make their studio albums resemble their live shows, rather than the other way around. The band's American records at this time period were issued by the Perception Records label in New York, and the band's "Golden Earring" LP, known as "Wall of Dolls", and single "Back Home" performed poorly in the US but became a number 1 hit in the Netherlands.


title: Golden Earring

text: In 1969, drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk joined the band, completing what has become Golden Earring's classic line-up. The band enjoyed brief international fame in the 1970s when the single version of "Radar Love" (1973), from the gold-certified album "Moontan" became a hit in both Europe and the US. Golden Earring embarked on their first major US tour in 1969–1970. Owing to American influences, their music evolved towards hard rock, and they performed along with Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Procol Harum, and Eric Clapton. Between 1969 and 1984, Golden Earring completed 13 US tours. During this period, they performed as the opening act for Santana, King Crimson, the Doobie Brothers, Rush and .38 Special. During 1973–74, when "Radar Love" was a hit, they had Kiss and Aerosmith as their opening acts. While signed to the UK Track Records label, the band rented the superb quadraphonic sound system normally used exclusively by the Who.


title: Golden Earring

text: Golden Earring enjoyed a brief period of US stardom, but were unable to secure further chart success until 1982's "Twilight Zone". The music video of the song, directed by Dick Maas, was played on the recently launched MTV in the United States, and helped the song to become a US hit, spending 27 weeks on the Billboard chart.


title: Golden Earring

text: "When the Lady Smiles" became an international hit in 1984, reaching No. 3 in Canada and becoming the band's fifth number one hit in their native country, but was not successful in the United States, reaching no higher than #76 on the US Singles Chart. The video was banned from MTV because of its "unholy desires about a nun and a lobotomy"; this was Dick Maas's second video for the band, and helped launch his career as a film director. While touring the US in 1984, the band played at the Great Arena Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey on May 11 and were in the midst of their performance when a fire broke out at the Haunted Castle on the opposite side of the theme park, killing eight teenagers. Following this tour, Golden Earring turned their focus toward Europe where they continued to attract standing-room-only crowds. The group paused briefly after the release of "The Hole" in 1986 to focus on other projects, with Hay and Kooymans both releasing solo albums ("Victory of Bad Taste" and "Solo", respectively) the following year. The group then reconvened to record their final album of the 1980s, releasing "Keeper of the Flame" in 1989.


title: Golden Earring

text: In 1991, Golden Earring had another hit in the Netherlands with "Going to the Run", a rock-ballad about a Hells Angels motorcycle gang member who was a friend of the band and died in a crash. The Russian rock band Aria made a successful cover of "Going to the Run" as "Беспечный ангел" ("Careless Angel"). Between 1992 and 2004, the band released three acoustic live unplugged albums, which became quick successes. The acoustic albums feature unplugged versions of famous hits of the band, and have been some of the band's best-selling albums, such as "The Naked Truth", which sold over 500,000 copies in the Netherlands.


title: Golden Earring

text: Golden Earring performed over 200 concerts a year, mainly in their home country and occasionally in Belgium, Germany, and the UK. These energetic live performances have been recorded on several live albums—"Live", recorded at London's Rainbow Theater in 1977; "2nd Live", 1981; "Something Heavy Going Down", 1984 (also released on DVD as "Live from the Twilight Zone"); and "Last Blast of the Century", a live recording of their last concert of the 20th century (available on both CD and DVD). Furthermore, the band's acoustic live albums include "The Naked Truth" (1992), "Naked II" (1997) and "Naked III" (2005). Their latest live album, "Live from Ahoy 2006", is a DVD with bonus CD.


title: Golden Earring

text: Golden Earring celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2011, which the Dutch postal service honored with a stamp that contained a music link: when a smartphone with a special app is held up to the music stamp, Golden Earring's "Radar Love" plays.


title: Golden Earring

text: On 11 May 2012, the band released their latest studio album, entitled "Tits 'n Ass". The album was recorded in London during summer of 2011 with producer Chris Kimsey and peaked at No. 1 in the Dutch album charts twice. The album's song "Still Got the Keys to My First Cadillac" was issued as a single. A video for the song featured young impersonators of Golden Earring.


title: Golden Earring

text: On 5 February 2021, the band's manager announced to the Dutch press that their active career was over due to George Kooymans' serious illness.


title: The Grey (film)

text: The Grey is a 2011 survival film co-written, produced and directed by Joe Carnahan and starring Liam Neeson, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, and Dermot Mulroney. It is based on the short story "Ghost Walker" by Ian MacKenzie Jeffers, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Carnahan. The story follows a number of oil-men stranded in Alaska after a plane crash, who must wage a war against multiple packs of Canadian grey wolves, stalking them during the mercilessly cold weather.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Released in the United States on January 27, 2012, the film received positive reviews, with praise for its philosophical themes, and for Liam Neeson's performance. It grossed $81 million worldwide.


title: The Grey (film)

text: John Ottway is a sharpshooter for an oil company in Alaska, primarily killing grey wolves that threaten the drillers. On his last day on the job, he sees a wolf pursuing a pipeline worker and shoots it, listening to the wolf's final breath. That evening, Ottway writes a letter "without purpose" to his wife, Ana, explaining his plans to kill himself, but does not follow through. The next day, Ottway boards a plane that will take him back to Anchorage for his two weeks off. However, the plane begins to have major turbulence and falls apart, crashing somewhere in the remote Alaskan wilderness.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Only a handful of people survive the crash, including Ottway. Ottway sees Chavis calling for help, pinned down, stabbing his leg on his seat and his leg got stuck. Ottway helps him, though Chavis has hypoxia. Ottway finds Hernandez before they find Flannery sleeping. Ottway and Hernandez take Flannery to the crash, finding Talget, Diaz, and Burke. Henrick watches helplessly as Lewenden has a lot of blood on his abdomen. Ottway talks quietly to Lewenden before he dies of his injuries.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Ottway takes charge of the survivors, and sees one of the flight attendants moving. He runs to help her, only to realize that the movement came from a wolf feeding on her corpse. Ottway is attacked by the wolf, but is rescued by the group; Diaz finds Calfskin's body. Ottway realizes that the plane has crashed in the wolves' territory and they take turns keeping watch. While on watch, Hernandez is killed by two wolves, and Ottway suggests that they should leave the crash site to avoid further attacks, but Diaz questions his leadership. While searching for the wallets of the dead to return to their families, Diaz finds an emergency wrist watch with a radio beacon, which he vainly hopes will send for rescue.


title: The Grey (film)

text: While attempting to reach the nearby treeline, Flannery falls behind and is killed by three wolves. The survivors run for the trees, lighting a fire to ward off the animals and building makeshift weaponry. Diaz succumbs to stress and threatens Ottway with a knife but is quickly disarmed. Before he can apologize, he is attacked by a wolf, which the group manages to kill and roast for food. Ottway surmises that the wolf was an omega sent by the alpha wolf to test the group. A crazed Diaz beheads the wolf's corpse, throwing the severed head at the pack, which causes the wolves to howl in rage.


title: The Grey (film)

text: By the fire, Diaz tells the group of his atheism and Talget states that he believes in God and lovingly talks about his daughter. Ottway says that he is also an atheist, but wishes that he could believe or have faith, and recites a simple poem written by his father. The next day, a blizzard hits and Burke, who had been suffering from hypoxia, is found dead. The remaining survivors travel to the edge of a canyon. Henrick secures a line to a tree on the opposite side, and Diaz and Ottway traverse the canyon. Talget gets his foot caught on a hook, and the rope breaks away and he falls to the ground. Barely alive, he hallucinates a vision of his daughter, and is dragged away and gets ripped apart by wolves. Attempting to save Talget, Diaz falls from the tree and badly injures his knee.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Diaz, Ottway, and Henrick arrive at a river where Diaz, humbled by his journey and unable to walk, explains that he can accept dying in the middle of nature. Leaving Diaz to his fate, Ottway and Henrick continue and are set upon by the wolves. Henrick falls into the river and is trapped beneath the surface; Ottway is unable to pull him loose, and Hendrick drowns. Now alone, Ottway angrily appeals to God to "show him something real," but seeing nothing, decides that he will "do it [himself.]"


title: The Grey (film)

text: Exhausted and suffering from hypothermia, Ottway eventually stops walking and goes through the collected wallets before arranging them into a cross. He realizes too late that he has stumbled right into the wolves' den – the team had been walking towards, not away from, the danger. Surrounded by the wolf pack and facing its leader, Ottway looks at his wife's photo in his wallet. It is revealed that she was dying of a terminal illness, the reason for his suicidal tendencies earlier. As the alpha wolf approaches, Ottway arms himself with a knife and shards of liquor bottles taped to his hand. He recites the words in a voice-over, "Once more into the fray. Into the last good fight I'll ever know. Live and die on this day. Live and die on this day", and then charges the alpha wolf. In the aftermath, Ottway and the alpha wolf are shown breathing heavily and lying down on each other, leaving their fates unknown.


title: The Grey (film)

text: "The Grey" reunited director Joe Carnahan with producers Ridley Scott and Tony Scott (credited as executive producer) as well as actor Liam Neeson, who collaborated on the 2010 action film "The A-Team". The film initially imagined a much-younger lead character and


title: The Grey (film)

text: Bradley Cooper, who also worked with Carnahan on "The A-Team", was cast in the lead role, but he was eventually replaced by Neeson.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Filming began in January 2011 and ended in March. The film was shot in forty days in Vancouver and Smithers, British Columbia, with several scenes shot at the


title: The Grey (film)

text: Smithers Regional Airport. According to "Empire" magazine, in the climactic scene in which Neeson's character pens a letter to his wife, Carnahan urged Neeson to "channel his grief" over the death of his wife Natasha Richardson. Carnahan disclosed, in a Q&A session following an early screening at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, he had an alternative ending he never intended to use showing Neeson battling the alpha wolf. It was supposed to be included in deleted cuts; however, no extras were included on the Blu-ray.


title: The Grey (film)

text: The world premiere of "The Grey" took place on January 11, 2012, at the Regal Cinemas Theatre in Los Angeles. The film was released nationwide on January 27, 2012.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Promotion for "The Grey" in part targeted Christian groups by issuing a "film companion", which highlighted the spiritual value of the film. Marketing also partnered with The Weather Network to highlight the hazardous filming conditions. Open Road Films incorporated comments tweeted by film critics to promote the film in the third trailer for "The Grey". This was the first time tweets from and Twitter handles for professional critics had been used in a film trailer.


title: The Grey (film)

text: The score for "The Grey" was released on CD February 14, 2012. A digital version available for download was released on January 24, 2012.


title: The Grey (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 79% based on 209 reviews, with an average rating of 6.90/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Grey" is an exciting tale of survival, populated with fleshed-out characters and a surprising philosophical agenda." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on reviews from 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 3 and a half stars out of 4, and wrote the unrelenting harshness of "The Grey" so affected him, he departed the screening of a different movie on the same day:


title: The Grey (film)

text: The film also earned a place on A.O. Scott's list of the year's ten best films, and "Slate" film critic Dana Stevens included it in her runners-up for the year's best movies. Film critic Richard Roeper also had "The Grey" in his top 10 best movies of 2012 list, placing it at number 3.


title: The Grey (film)

text: Dissenters' reviews tend to focus on the film's abrupt ending, and perceive the emotional and philosophical undertones as unnecessary. Siobhan Synnot of "The Scotsman" gave the film two stars, commenting "On the down side, there's a lot of dull pretentious philosophizing about the heartlessness of nature and God. On the up side, you get to see a man punch a wolf in the face." Some reviewers and analysts say the film has an atheist theme, due to characters such as John Ottway (Liam Neeson) pleading for divine help but not getting any.


title: The Grey (film)

text: The Grey opened in North America on January 27, 2012 in 3,185 theaters and grossed $19.7 million in its opening weekend, with an average of $6,174 per theater, finishing first. The film ultimately earned $51.6 million domestically, and $29.7 million internationally, for a total of $81.2 million, against its $25 million production budget.


title: The Grey (film)

text: On January 19, 2012, British Columbia's "The Province" featured an article about the movie's crew buying four wolf carcasses, two for props for the film and two wolves for the cast to eat. This angered environmentalists and animal activists, irate because the film depicts wolves in a negative light, specifically at a time grey wolves are not on any Endangered Species Act in many western American states. In response to the portrayal of wolves in the film, groups including PETA and WildEarth Guardians started drives to boycott the film. Open Road responded by placing a fact sheet about the grey wolf on the film's official website while the Sierra Club cooperated. Carnahan responded to the criticism by saying the film is meant to reflect humanity's internal spiritual journeys.


title: Pound for pound

text: Pound for pound is a ranking used in combat sports, such as boxing, wrestling, or mixed martial arts, of who the better fighters are irrespective of their weight, i.e. adjusted to compensate for weight class. As these fighters do not compete directly, judging the best fighter pound for pound is subjective, and ratings vary. They may be based on a range of criteria including "quality of opposition" and factors such as how exciting the fighter is or how famous they are, or be an attempt to determine who would win if all those ranked were the same size.


title: Pound for pound

text: In boxing, the term was historically associated with fighters such as Benny Leonard and Sugar Ray Robinson who were widely considered to be the most skilled fighters of their day, to distinguish them from the generally more popular (and better compensated) heavyweight champions. Since 1990, "The Ring" magazine has maintained a pound for pound ranking of fighters.


title: Pound for pound

text: Some mixed martial arts promotions have pound-for-pound rankings, including Ultimate Fighting Championship since 2013, ONE Championship since 2020, and Bellator MMA since 2021. There are also multiple unofficial MMA pound-for-pound rankings, including by ESPN.com, Sherdog, Fight Matrix, MMA Fighting and Tapology.


title: Pound for pound

text: ONE Championship publishes pound-for-pound rankings for kickboxing and Muay Thai since 2020. Combat Press and Beyond Kick also publish pound-for-pound rankings for kickboxing.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach ( ; ; born September 24, 1989), formerly known professionally as Pia Romero, is a Filipino-German model, actress and beauty queen who is known for being crowned Miss Universe 2015.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: She joined Binibining Pilipinas pageant three times, and won in 2015 in her third attempt. She then represented Philippines at the Miss Universe 2015 pageant, where she eventually won the title, becoming the first Filipina to win the pageant in four decades, and the first Filipina to win the pageant in the 21st century. She is the third Filipina to win the title of Miss Universe, following Gloria Diaz who won in 1969 and Margie Moran who won in 1973, and was succeeded by Catriona Gray three years later, with Gray winning Miss Universe 2018.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach was born in Stuttgart, Germany, to a German father and Filipino mother. She has a sister who is two years younger than she is. The family later moved to Northern Mindanao region in the Philippines, first in Iligan city, then settled at Cagayan de Oro city, where she attended kindergarten at Kong Hua School and primary school at Corpus Christi School.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Her parents separated when she was 11 years old, and she became the family's main breadwinner by modeling and acting. After being raised in the Philippines, she spent several years in England. She finished her secondary education at ABS-CBN Distance Learning Center in Quezon City, Metro Manila, and studied culinary arts at the Center for Asian Culinary Studies in San Juan, Metro Manila. Wurtzbach speaks fluent Cebuano, English and Tagalog. She also speaks basic German, which she described as "enough to get myself a bratwurst".


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Wurtzbach is a professional model, actress, host and TV personality. She began acting at age four under the stage name Pia Romero. Managed by ABS-CBN Corporation's talent agency, Star Magic, she was included on the "Star Circle Batch 11". Among her TV credits are the teen-oriented series "K2BU", the concert variety program "ASAP", the romance anthology "Your Song", the sitcom show "Bora", and the drama series "Sa Piling Mo". She appeared in films such as "Kung Ako Na Lang Sana" (2003), "All My Life" (2004), and "All About Love" (2006). She went on to become a stylist, makeup artist and beauty writer for "Philippine Daily Inquirer"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "2bU" section. She then had to temporarily quit showbiz in order to focus on the Miss Universe pageant.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: After becoming Miss Universe 2015, she returned to ABS-CBN after signing a two-year exclusive contract on October 9, 2017. She appeared as a guest host in "ASAP" and the co-host of "World of Dance Philippines" with Luis Manzano.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Wurtzbach joined the Binibining Pilipinas 2013 pageant where she was named as the 1st Runner-Up alongside the "Miss San Miguel Zero Fit and Sexy Body" award. Ariella Arida won the said pageant.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: She joined the Binibining Pilipinas 2014, but only placed in the top 15 alongside the "Miss Philippine Airlines" and "She's So Jag" awards. A controversy erupted when she failed to win any title following her question-and-answer portion. She was asked a question in Tagalog by a Filipino judge, Senator Sonny Angara, which she answered in Tagalog. Online commentators wondered if the question and answer in Tagalog cost her points from the international judges and, therefore, any title that year. Mary Jean Lastimosa won the said pageant.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On her third attempt for the title in 2015, she won the highest title, Miss Universe Philippines, alongside the "Miss Cream Silk" awards and went on to compete in the Miss Universe 2015 Pageant. During the question and answer portion of the pageant she was asked by then-Camarines Sur Representative Leni Robredo: "Social media is now a very powerful tool on communication. Can you tell us your thoughts about internet censorship?" She answered:


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On April 17, 2016, Wurtzbach crowned Maxine Medina as her successor at the Binibining Pilipinas 2016 pageant held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City, Philippines.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Wurtzbach represented the Philippines in the 64th Miss Universe pageant held on December 20, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: At the national costume competition, Wurtzbach wore a white capiz terno with a matching fan and headpiece. The whole ensemble was designed by Filipino designer, Albert Andrada.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: At the preliminary competition, Wurtzbach wore a black and white two-piece bikini at the preliminary swimsuit competition and a red sleeveless crepe de chine gown by Filipino designer Oliver Tolentino at the preliminary evening gown competition.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: She then wore a black and white two-piece bikini at the swimsuit competition that helped her advance to Top 10. She wore Albert Andrada's figure-hugging, strapless serpentina gown. It was inspired by the Philippines, the "Pearl of the Orient". She then advanced to Top 5.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: During the first question and answer round, Wurtzbach was asked by host Steve Harvey, "earlier this year, there was a controversy in the Philippines about the United States reopening a military base in your country. Do you think the United States should have a military presence in your country?" She answered:


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: In the final question and answer portion, the top three contestants were asked the same question by Harvey: "Why should you be the next Miss Universe?" and she replied:


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Wurtzbach's answer references the pageant's motto "Confidently Beautiful". At the end of the show, host Steve Harvey mistakenly announced Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutiérrez as the winner. However, after Gutiérrez's crowning, Harvey returned to the stage and stated that he had misread the results and that Wurtzbach was really Miss Universe 2015. Paulina Vega (Miss Universe 2014) then removed the crown from Gutiérrez's head and placed it on Wurtzbach's head.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Wurtzbach is the third Miss Universe from the Philippines after Gloria Diaz in 1969, and Margie Moran in 1973.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On January 21, 2016, she traveled to Bali in Indonesia to shoot a commercial for "C 1000", a vitamin brand available in Indonesia. Two days later, on January 23, 2016, she arrived in the Philippines for a week-long homecoming celebration with visits to the cities of Manila, Makati, Pasay and Quezon City. She also made courtesy calls to the Congress of the Philippines, Senate of the Philippines and Malacañang Palace.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On February 1, 2016, she arrived in San Francisco to fulfill her duties as "Inside Edition"s special correspondent for Super Bowl 50. While in San Francisco, she was also reunited with Janine Tugonon, Miss Universe 2012 1st Runner-up from the Philippines.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On February 28, 2016, she travelled to Toronto, Canada to deliver a speech against bullying at the Speakers Forum for the International Students of the Language Academy of Canada wherein she shared some of her childhood experiences as a victim of bullying. During her stay in Canada, she was reunited with Miss Universe Canada 2015, Paola Nunez Valdez. She also met and gave some advice to the contestants of Miss Universe Canada 2016.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On March 25, 2016, Wurtzbach returned to the Philippines for an unannounced visit to take care of some personal things including renewing her Philippine passport, charity works and film a new commercial for Philippine Airlines. She also met and gave advice to the candidates of Binibining Pilipinas 2016 during their press presentation. On April 12, 2016 she returned to the Philippines for the Binibining Pilipinas 2016 pageant and on April 17 crowned her successor Maxine Medina as Miss Universe Philippines 2016 during the coronation night. During the pageant she was reunited with Miss Myanmar 2015, May Barani Thaw and Miss Malaysia 2015, Vanessa Tevi while Miss USA 2015, who at Miss Universe, placed 2nd runner-up, Olivia Jordan served as a judge. Wurtzbach's farewell speech and walk at Binibining Pilipinas 2016 as Miss Universe Philippines 2015, trended at social media with enormous hits.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On April 21, 2016, Wurtzbach arrived in Peru to attend Miss Peru 2016 pageant where she served as a judge. She also had a press conference a day before the pageant and was greeted by the Lima City Mayor, Luis Castaneda and received an honor of being "The Distinguished Guest of Lima". Wurtzbach along with Miss Peru 2015, Laura Spoya crowned Valeria Piazza, Miss Peru 2016.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On April 27, 2016, Wurtzbach threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the New York Mets. A month later on May 27, 2016, Wurtzbach travelled to Machala, Ecuador to help the victims of the recent earthquake that killed at least 600 people. She was welcomed by the mayor of Machala, Carlos Falquez Batallas to the city and was named as an honorary volunteer of the Guayas Red Cross wherein she was invited to participate in the global appeal of raise resources to build 6,000 homes for the earthquake victims. She was also given a chance to meet Connie Jiménez, Miss Ecuador 2016 during her visit.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: In June 2016, Wurtzbach represented the Philippines and the Miss Universe Organization in a high-level meeting of the United Nations that aimed at ending AIDS.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: In her capacity as Miss Universe, Wurtzbach visited Indonesia, Canada, Peru, Ecuador, Cayman Islands, Thailand, Panama, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, several cities across the United States and her native country, the Philippines.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: As a parting gift on her final official photoshoot, Wurtzbach was granted access to the elusive Mikimoto Crown. Wurtzbach relinquished her Miss Universe crown and passed it on to Iris Mittenaere of France at the 65th Miss Universe pageant, held on January 30, 2017 in Manila, Philippines.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On January 30, 2017, Wurtzbach stated that she has signed a contract with WME/IMG's IMG Universe division where she will continue to work with the Miss Universe Organization as an HIV/AIDS awareness advocate after her reign.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: She costarred with Vice Ganda and Daniel Padilla in a film under production of Star Cinema. The project served as her acting comeback after six years and her first film in more than a decade. The film entitled "" served as one of the eight official film entries in the 2017 Metro Manila Film Festival.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: On January 6, 2020, Wurtzbach had her own trending OPM song named after her, sung by BLYMNDT ft. Angelo and BRYC, which was a month after Catriona Gray's own trending song was released. The latter's song was actually sung by Matthaios.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Although a practicing Roman Catholic, Wurtzbach openly supports views contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, particularly the distribution of birth control via full implementation of the Philippines' Reproductive Health Law and the recognition of LGBT rights in the Philippines. On December 13, 2016, she received a personal rosary from Pope Francis.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Wurtzbach is an advocate for gender equality. On Instagram she declared her support for the LGBT community in light of the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016. In 2018, she called on the Philippine Senate to pass the SOGIE Equality Bill. In 2017, Wurtzbach was named a UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador for Asia and the Pacific.


title: Pia Wurtzbach

text: Wurtzbach has tweeted that she intends to remain unmarried and childfree. In June 2020, she confirmed her relationship with Scottish entrepreneur Jeremy Jauncey. She dated Filipino-Swiss race-car driver Marlon Stöckinger from 2017 to 2019.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A is the top division of the 2022–23 edition of the UEFA Nations League, the third season of the international football competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of UEFA. League A will culminate with the Nations League Finals in June 2023 to determine the champions of the competition.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: France are the defending champions, having won the 2021 finals; however, they finished third in their group, ending their defence of the title.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: League A consists of the 16 top-ranked UEFA members in the 2022–23 UEFA Nations League access list, split into four groups of four. Each team played six matches within their group, using the home-and-away round-robin format in June (four matchdays) and September 2022 (two matchdays). The winners of each group advanced to the 2023 UEFA Nations League Finals, and the fourth-placed team from each group was relegated to the 2024–25 UEFA Nations League B.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The Nations League Finals will take place in June 2023 and be played in a knockout format, consisting of the semi-finals, third place play-off and final. The semi-final pairings will be determined by means of an open draw. The host country will be selected among the four qualified teams by the UEFA Executive Committee, with the winners of the final crowned as the champions of the UEFA Nations League.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The four group winners were drawn into groups of five teams for UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying (in order to accommodate for the Nations League Finals).


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: In the 2022–23 access list, UEFA ranked teams based on the 2020–21 Nations League overall ranking. The seeding pots for the league phase were confirmed on 22 September 2021, and were based on the access list ranking.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The draw for the league phase took place at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland on 16 December 2021, 18:00 CET. Each group contained one team from each pot.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The fixture list was confirmed by UEFA on 17 December 2021, the day following the draw. The fixture list for Group 4 was amended due to the postponement of Path A of UEFA qualifying for the World Cup.


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The four nations from Group A4 (Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and Wales) bid to host the Nations League Finals. As the nation that qualified for the finals, the Netherlands was granted hosting rights. The semi-final pairings will be determined by means of an open draw on 25 January 2023, 11:00 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. For scheduling purposes, the host team is allocated to semi-final 1 as the administrative home team.<section end=UNLF />


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The 16 League A teams will be ranked 1st to 16th overall in the 2022–23 UEFA Nations League according to the following rules:


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The four best teams in League A according to the overall ranking that failed to qualify for UEFA Euro 2024 through the qualifying group stage, will compete against each other to win one extra qualification spot through the path A play-offs. If the qualifying group stage results in less than four un-qualified teams from League A, the first available slot for the teams participating in the path A play-offs, will be allocated to the best-ranked group winner of League D, subject to not already having qualified in the qualifying group stage. The remaining available slots will be allocated to the best ranked un-quallified teams from league B or league C (excluding group-winners of league B/C and teams previously chosen to participate in the path B play-offs and path C play-offs).


title: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League A

text: The path A play-offs were previously held in a similar fashion to decide one extra qualification spot for UEFA Euro 2020.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Club de Futbol Cruz Azul or simply Cruz Azul () is a professional football club based in Mexico City, Mexico. It competes in the Liga MX, the top division of Mexican football. Because "azul" means "blue" in Spanish, the club has traditionally worn a blue home kit.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Founded in Jasso, Hidalgo, the club moved officially to Mexico City in 1971, where it had already registered a great presence and activity since its beginnings. Estadio Azteca, the nation's largest sports venue, served as their home venue until 1996, when they moved to the Estadio Azul. After 22 years the team returned to the "Azteca" at the conclusion of the 2017-18 Liga MX season. Its headquarters are in La Noria, a suburb within Xochimilco in the southern part of Mexico City.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Cruz Azul has been in the Primera División champion nine times, trailing Toluca's 10, C.D. Guadalajara's 12, and Club América's 13. Cruz Azul's six titles makes it the second-most successful club in the history of the CONCACAF Champions League, the most prestigious international club competition in North American football, trailing intracity rival Club América. Cruz Azul was also the first CONCACAF team to reach the final of the Copa Libertadores, the most prestigious club competition in South American football (which invited top Liga MX clubs from 1998 to 2017), losing on penalties to Argentine football giants Boca Juniors in 2001. In the 1968–69 season, Cruz Azul was the first CONCACAF club (and third worldwide) to complete a rare Continental Treble, winning the Mexican Primera División championship, the Copa México national tournament, and the CONCACAF Champions League.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In its 2014 Club World Ranking, the International Federation of Football History & Statistics placed Cruz Azul as the 99th-best club in the world and the third-best club in CONCACAF. According to several polls published, Cruz Azul is the third-most popular team in Mexico, behind only C.D. Guadalajara and Club América. It is also the second most supported team in its hometown, Mexico City, behind América and ahead of Pumas UNAM.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Carlos Garces López was a footballer and athlete, included in the Mexico national team for the 1924 and 1928 athletics and football. As a Midfielder, he was part of Club América's founding squad and was a key player to their dominance of the Primera Fuerza in the mid-1920s. Garces López was included in the debut Mexico national football team in 1923, playing in Mexico's debut series of official international matches against Guatemala. At the time, football in Mexico was not a lucrative occupation. Garces López was a licensed dentist providing dental care at the cement company Cemento Cruz Azul located in the small town of Jasso, Hidalgo. He would travel regularly to Mexico City from Jasso to train and play for América.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In 1925, Cemento Cruz Azul had voted to establish a company baseball team as the sport was popular in the town of Jasso. Garces López personally lobbied for many months to change the official company sport to football. American employees initially receiving resistance but the company directors relented to a referendum for determination of the company team's main sport. The March 22, 1927 election favored football. Cemento Cruz Azul replaced the company baseball diamond with a football pitch. The football team was officially established two months later on May 22 where Garces López was appointed head coach.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Initially, Cemento Cruz Azul played in local tournaments organized by the company against teams representing towns neighboring Jasso. The team was composed solely of company workers for the next three decades. The club was widely successful in amateur tournaments during the 30s and 40s, winning 15 consecutive state level league titles.


title: Cruz Azul

text: By 1931, Cemento Cruz Azul had experienced a series of economic troubles during the Great Depression. Due to the loss of demand and production of cement and other construction materials, Cemento Cruz Azul faced bankruptcy and was bought by cement company "La Tolteca" on March 1, 1931, for 1 million pesos. The liquidation of Cemento Cruz Azul was anticipated by 192 workers of Cemento Cruz Azul who unionized and sued the executives of the company to prevent the transfer of the property which was set for October 15, 1931. The government of Hidalgo ruled in favor of the workers after it was shown "La Tolteca" had premeditated intentions of liquidation. The workers assumed control of the industrial facilities on November 2. On May 21, 1932, the governor of Hidalgo, Bartolomé Vargas Lugo, decreed the 192 workers of Cemento Cruz Azul as collective owners of the plant, exercising eminent domain. Part of the agreement, all 192 workers who assumed responsibility of the plant agreed to pay the state of Hidalgo 1.3 million pesos over the course of 10 years. The company changed its name to "Cooperativa Manufacturera de Cemento Portland La Cruz Azul, S.C.L", reestablishing itself as a cooperative on January 29, 1934. The debt was settled on November 2, 1941, 10 years after workers took ownership of the plant. In celebration, Cruz Azul organized a match against R.C. España, that ended in a 0–0 draw.


title: Cruz Azul

text: From 1932 to 1943, Cemento Cruz Azul won 15 consecutive league titles in an amateur league in the state of Hidalgo. On 8 different occasions, the club represented the state of Hidalgo in national amateur tournaments. From the mid-1930s to the late 1940s, the club regularly traveled to Mexico City to face the reserve teams of Atlante, Necaxa, Marte, and R.C. España, playing at Parque Necaxa to great success. By 1937, Cruz Azul had garnered a considerable following both in Hidalgo and Mexico City. Around this period in time Guillermo Álvarez Macías began playing on the team as a midfielder.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On December 10, 1953, Guillermo Álvarez Macías was appointed general manager of Cemento Cruz Azul. He had been employed at the cooperative since 1931 at the age of 12 when his father died. Initially employed as an automotive mechanic, Álvarez Macías spent over two decades at the company, rising through the ranks. A self-proclaimed socialist, Álvarez Macías laid plans to transform the cooperative into a functioning town, building schools, restaurants, paving roads, in hopes to modernize and "share social and economic progress, to raise the standard of living of the worker and his family." In his goal to promote social well-being among members of the co-op, Álvarez Macías invested into cultural and recreational activities. This included investing much more into the football club whose proceeds were used to provide the worker-players with better living conditions.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In 1958, team captain and machinist, Luis Velázquez Hernández, served as the club's ambassador to the Mexican Football Federation to lobby for official membership on the club's behalf. Velázquez Hernández met Paulino Sánchez in Mexico City, who had ties to prominent football executives. They met with Joaquín Soria Terrazas and Ignacio Trelles to discuss membership in the federation for the club. Sánchez vouched in favor of Cruz Azul, citing their continual success in the amateur and reserve tournaments. Much to the displeasure of Álvarez Macías who asserted the club was not ready for professional football.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In preparation for federation membership, Paulino Sánchez assumed the position as head manager of the club. Due to regulations, teams were required to have a reserve team. "Lafayette", a club experiencing financial troubles located in Colonia Moctezuma, had many talented players that could potentially be Cruz Azul's reserves. Under the recommendation of Sánchez, Cruz Azul purchased the "Lafayette" team. The acquisition was completed sometime in 1960. Plans to construct a club stadium that complied to the standards set by the Mexican Football Federation were conceived in 1960. In 1961, ground broke to construct Estadio 10 de Diciembre and finished in 1963.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Despite not possessing federation membership and due to Sánchez's personal contacts, Cruz Azul was invited to compete in the 1960-61 edition of "Copa de la Segunda División de México", a competition sanctioned by the Mexican Football Federation. The club's debut game was played on April 2, 1961, in Jasso against Zamora, ending in 2–1 in favor of Cruz Azul. The second leg was played on April 9, 1961, ending in a 3–3 draw. They faced Querétaro in the next round winning 1–0 on aggregate. Cruz Azul was eliminated by UNAM. Following their impressive performance in the cup, the Mexican Football Federation granted Cruz Azul an opportunity to register as a professional team.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The club was officially registered to compete in the nation's second tier professional league for the 1961-62 season.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Due to the regulations by the Mexican Football Federation that prohibited the official usage of company names by clubs, the club changed its name to "Cooperativa Cruz Azul" from "Cemento Cruz Azul"


title: Cruz Azul

text: Jorge Marik, a Hungarian coach who previously managed Atlas and Atlante, signed on to manage the club in 1961. Cruz Azul won a direct promotion to Primera División after Marik led the club to the 1st position on the general table with 45 points (19 wins, 7 draws, and 4 losses) in the 1963–64 Mexican Segunda División season.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Following the club's promotion, Estadio 10 de Diciembre underwent renovations on March 6, 1964, rebuilding the wooden stands and dressing rooms which were compliant to regulations.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Cruz Azul finished their first season in the top flight, the 1964–65 Mexican Primera División season, in 8th place with 10 wins, 9 draws, 11 losses.


title: Cruz Azul

text: After poor results, Marik left the club after the 1965–66 Mexican Primera División season where Cruz Azul finished in 13th place out of 16 teams on the league table. Walter Ormeño became the team's interim coach, managing 3 games, before the club signed Raúl Cárdenas October 20, 1966.


title: Cruz Azul

text: During the 1968–69 season under the direction of Cárdenas, Cruz Azul won their first Copa México, their first Primera División title, and their first CONCACAF Champions' Cup. After only 4 years in the nation's top flight, Cruz Azul managed to complete a treble, being the first club to do so in not only Mexico but in the CONCACAF region as well.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Cruz Azul finished in second place on the general table for the 1969–70 Mexican Primera División season.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The club was awarded the 1970 CONCACAF Champions' Cup on December 15, 1970, after Saprissa and Transvaal withdrew from the second phase of the competition in September citing economic issues.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Between 1970 and 1980, Cruz Azul led the Primera División with six league tournament championships; four under Cárdenas and the last two under Ignacio Trelles. This powerful version of the team earned the nickname "La Máquina Celeste" (The Blue Machine), which continues as one of the official nicknames of the team.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On December 18, 1976, Guillermo Álvarez Macías died of a heart attack at the age of 56 while awaiting President Portillo for a meeting.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Throughout the 1980s, Cruz Azul remained one of the most competitive teams in the league. Despite their consistent form and financial wealth, the club was unable to obtain a title. This drought would last for another 17 years.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In 1988, Guillermo Héctor Álvarez Cuevas, the son of the late Guillermo Álvarez Macías, assumed the position of general manager at the cooperative Cemento Cruz Azul and presidency of Cruz Azul.


title: Cruz Azul

text: For the 1991–92 season, Cruz Azul signed Carlos Hermosillo. An América icon who was fundamental to America's 1988–89 league championship victory against Cruz Azul, Hermosillo's signing was met with ambivalence by the club's supporters. Hermosillo, however, quickly established himself as an integral part of the team where he was the league's top goal scorer for 3 consecutive years (1993-94, 1994-95, 1995-96 - 27, 35, 26 goals respectively).


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the 1994-95 season, the club finished 3rd in the league's overall table and reached a league final for the first time in 6 years where they were defeated 3–1 on aggregate by Necaxa.


title: Cruz Azul

text: July 20 of 1996 marked the end of a 16 year long championship drought for Cruz Azul. The team managed by Víctor Manuel Vucetich won the CONCACAF Champions' Cup single round-robin tournament held in Guatemala City. Cruz Azul finished 1st on the table after defeating Seattle Sounders 11–0 at Estadio Flores. Vucetich also lead Cruz Azul to a Copa México title, winning the 1996–97 Copa México at the Estadio 10 de Diciembre after defeating Toros Neza 2–0.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Under the management of Luis Fernando Tena, Cruz Azul won the CONCACAF Champions' Cup on August 24, 1997, for the second consecutive year after defeating LA Galaxy 5–3 in the final.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On December 7, 1997, Cruz Azul, who finished 2nd in the general standings of the league table, won the Invierno 1997 league tournament the against table leaders León via golden goal. This marked an end to the club's 17 year long league drought as well as achieving Cruz Azul's second continental treble.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The second leg of the series is largely remembered in part of a self-admittedly inexplicable act of aggression committed by León's goalkeeper Ángel Comizzo towards Carlos Hermosillo that handed the championship title to Cruz Azul. During the 15th minute of the first half of extra time, Comizzo shoved and kicked Cruz Azul striker Hermosillo in the face while inside the penalty box. Referee Arturo Brizio only witnessed the shove but did not see the kick as he turned his head away when Comizzo kicked Hermosillo. The penalty was called in favor of Cruz Azul while Comizzo did not get sent off. Hermosillo, whose face was bleeding profusely, took the penalty kick and scored. As the golden goal rule applied, Cruz Azul won the match and their eighth league title.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In 2001, Cruz Azul was invited to a tournament between select Mexican and Venezuelan teams that would then compete in the Copa Libertadores, a tournament of the best South American teams. The two best teams of this qualifying tournament earned immediate placement on the roster.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Cruz Azul was one of the seeded teams and reached the 2001 Copa Libertadores final match. Cruz Azul started the tournament in Group 7 along with Sao Caetano, Defensor Sporting, and Olmedo. Cruz Azul finished as leader of the group with 13 points. In the round of 16 Cruz Azul faced Cerro Porteño. The first leg was played in Asunción, where Cruz Azul lost 2–1. The second leg was played in Mexico City, where Cruz Azul won the game 3–1. The aggregate score was 4–3 in favor of Cruz Azul and they moved on to the quarterfinals.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the quarterfinals, Cruz Azul faced River Plate of Argentina. The first leg of the match was played in Buenos Aires and ended in a 0–0 draw. The second leg was played in Mexico City and Cruz Azul won 3–0. Cruz Azul was having a great run and faced Rosario Central at the semifinals. The first leg was played in Mexico City and Cruz Azul won the game 2–0. The second leg was played in Rosario, a very exciting match that ended in a 3–3 draw in favor of Cruz Azul due to the 2–0 victory in the first leg.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the final match, Cruz Azul played against the Argentine giants Boca Juniors. Cruz Azul lost at home the first leg 1–0, but came back to win the second leg with the same score at Boca's La Bombonera stadium with Paco Palencia scoring the goal. Until then, no team had ever won a Copa Libertadores final match there. After overtime, the championship was decided by penalty kicks where Boca Juniors prevailed. Still, Cruz Azul surprised everybody with the unprecedented feat of reaching the final and defeating established Argentinian teams such as Rosario Central and River Plate.


title: Cruz Azul

text: After leaving a pre-season practice session on July 16, 2005, manager Rubén Omar Romano was cornered by two stolen vehicles and abducted by 5 men. A ransom note was later found demanding of Romano's family $500,000. Assistant coach Isaac Mizrahi managed the team during Romano's absence. After 65 days, Romano was found and rescued unharmed. Federal agents raided a house in a poor neighborhood where Romano and his kidnappers were situated. The agents arrested 7 conspirators who were under the orders of convicted abductor Jose Luis Canchola.


title: Cruz Azul

text: During the hostage incident, the club had decided to not renew Romano's contract upon the end of Apertura 2005 and instead offered the position to Mizrahi following stellar results. Mizrahi accepted the offer while Romano was in captivity. Romano stated he felt betrayed and his friendship with Mizrahi was severed.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The club was regularly regarded to be contenders for championship titles due to their formidable and financial stature in the league. Throughout this period in time however, Cruz Azul competed in many league and tournament finals only to finish runners-up. In these championship matches, as well as regular season games, Cruz Azul initially would be favorites to win, often having the advantage over the opponent, but would ultimately draw or lose near the end of full stoppage time. As a result, the club garnered a negative reputation of being cursed and the club would often be subject to ridicule. The term cruzazulear, defined as "the act of losing a game after victory is practically assured", is used to describe Cruz Azul losing a match in the aforementioned manner beginning sometime in 2013. The usage of the term was so prevalent that it is officially recognized by the Royal Spanish Academy in 2020.


title: Cruz Azul

text: During the Clausura 2008 season, the team played a great tournament, finishing in second place. The team won 9 games, had 4 draws and lost only 4 times. In the quarterfinals they played against the Jaguares losing 1–0 in the first leg and winning 2–1 in the second leg with goals of Pablo Zeballos and Miguel Sabah. They moved to the semifinals against the San Luis, the first leg was played in San Luis and Cruz Azul won 0–1 with a goal of Miguel Sabah. In the second leg, Cruz Azul and the San Luis played a formidable match that ended 1–1 with goals of Eduardo Coudet and Pablo Zeballos. In the final, Cruz Azul played against Santos Laguna, second place in the tournament. In the first leg, Cruz Azul lost 1–2 at home, and a 1–1 draw in the second leg meant that Santos were champions with a 3–2 aggregate score.


title: Cruz Azul

text: For the Apertura 2008 season, Cruz Azul finished in 5th place on the overall table. The team had 7 wins, 5 draws, and 5 losses.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the quarterfinals, Cruz Azul defeated Pumas UNAM with an aggregate score of 3–1, moving on to the semifinals against Atlante; the first leg was played in Mexico City, and Cruz Azul won 3–1. In the second leg, Cruz Azul tied Atlante 1–1 in Cancún, which meant that Cruz Azul reached the Final for the second consecutive time. In the final, Cruz Azul played against Toluca, both teams tied on winning Mexican titles (at that time with 8 each). The first leg played in Mexico City ended with a dramatic 0–2 with a victory for Toluca, and in the second leg, which was played at Estadio Nemesio Díez, Cruz Azul won 0–2, which put the aggregate score at 2–2, which meant extra time had to be played. No goals were scored in extra time and the match went into a penalty shootout, where Toluca won 7–6 over Cruz Azul and won the title, after Alejandro Vela missed his penalty, even though he was the one that scored the opening goal of the game for Cruz Azul. In the 72nd minute, César Villaluz was fouled in the penalty box and suffered a serious injury, but Cruz Azul were unable to substitute him as they had no remaining substitutes, so the team was forced to defend the scoreline with 10 men for almost fifty minutes, which possibly could´ve had a big outcome on the result, as well as the decision to not award a penalty.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The team qualified for the 2008–09 CONCACAF Champions League by finishing league runner-ups. In the first stage, they finished second in Group A, qualifying for the knockout stage. In the quarter-finals, they defeated Pumas UNAM 2–0 on aggregate; in the semi-finals, they defeated the Puerto Rico Islanders on penalties with 10 men, after coming back from a 2–0 loss in the first leg. In the final against Atlante, they lost the first game 0–2 and tied the second 0–0, losing on aggregate.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the Clausura 2009, the team had the worst tournament in club history en route to a last-place finish. They accumulated just 13 points in 17 games, winning only two games, with seven draws and eight losses. The Club sacked their manager Benjamín Galindo with one game left in the Clausura. He was replaced for the remainder of the season by Robert Siboldi who was then coaching Cruz Azul's affiliate in Hidalgo.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the Apertura 2009, the team had signed Enrique Meza to manage the team and signed several players, including the best goalkeeper of the previous Mexican tournament Jose de Jesus Corona, Argentine striker Emanuel "Tito" Villa, Ramon Nuñez, and Emilio Hernandez. The team finished the regular season in second place with 33 points, winning 11 games of 17 played, and qualifying for the playoffs; Villa was the top scorer of the tournament with 17 goals. In the quarter-finals, they beat Puebla 7–6 on aggregate, and in the semi-finals, they beat Monarcas Morelia 2–1 on aggregate. In the final, they lost to Monterrey 6–4 on aggregate, meaning this was now their third consecutive time failing to win a league finals.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In April 2012, Cruz Azul changed their official name from Club Deportivo, Social y Cultural Cruz Azul, A.C. to simply Cruz Azul Fútbol Club, A.C.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the 2009–10 CONCACAF Champions League, the team had a good tournament, finishing first in Group C and qualifying for the final stage of playoffs. In the quarter-finals, they defeated Panamanian team Árabe Unido 4–0 on aggregate, and then in the semifinal round, they played against the Mexico City rivals Pumas UNAM, losing the first leg 1–0 but winning the return leg 5–1 at Estadio Azul. In the final, against another Mexican club, Pachuca, they had the chance to win their 6th CONCACAF championship, winning the first game at home 2–1, but lost at Pachuca's home 1–0 with a last minute goal, meaning Pachuca won the championship by the away goals rule, and Cruz Azul missed the opportunity to participate in the 2010 FIFA Club World Cup.


title: Cruz Azul

text: During the 2013 season, Cruz Azul started slow but regained confidence after beating Club América in the Copa MX semi-finals and winning the Copa MX final over the Atlante. After Cruz Azul won the Copa MX, their Liga MX performance improved and they were considered one of the contenders for the title due to a good streak. They would face bitter rivals the Club America in a historical final series of the "Clásico Joven." Cruz Azul was up 2–0 in aggregate when the Club America made a miraculous comeback with goals in the 89th from Aquilvado Mosquera and 93rd minute from Moises Munoz who was a goalkeeper of the second leg; Club America would go on to win 4–2 on penalties.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On April 23, 2014, after defeating Toluca, Cruz Azul won their 6th CONCACAF championship, a record at the time, and winning their first trophy in seventeen years. This gave Cruz Azul a berth at the 2014 FIFA Club World Cup, where they would earn a fourth-place finish.


title: Cruz Azul

text: From the Clausura 2014 to the Clausura 2017, Cruz Azul had been unable to qualify to the liguilla playoffs for six consecutive tournaments. Cruz Azul qualified for the liguilla for the first time in three years in the Apertura 2017 season. However, they were eliminated in the quarterfinals by the América, who advanced as the higher-ranked seed, with an aggregate score of 0–0. On 27 November 2017, Cruz Azul announced that Paco Jémez would not renew his contract for the following season.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In the Liga MX Clausura 2018 tournament, Cruz Azul ended up ranked 12th and failed to qualify for the liguilla. The club also finished last place in the group stage of the Clausura 2018 Copa MX.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On 7 May 2018, the club announced director of football Eduardo de la Torre's contract had ended and would be replaced by Ricardo Peláez, former director of football for Club América.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On 31 October, they would face Monterrey in the Apertura 2018 Copa MX Final, winning 2–0 with goals from Elías Hernández and Martín Cauteruccio. It was their first trophy in the tournament since 2013.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Cruz Azul faced América in a rematch of the Clausura 2013 final for the Apertura 2018 final. The first leg was played on 13 December 2018 which ended in a scoreless draw. The second leg was played three days later and ended in a 2–0 victory for América. With this defeat, Cruz Azul extended its 21-year-old championship drought in the league for at least another season.


title: Cruz Azul

text: In May 2020, Guillermo Alvarez Cuevas, then president of the club, was indicted by Mexican authorities on multiple accounts of insurance fraud, racketeering, extortion, tax evasion, and money laundering. On July 26, an arrest warrant was issued for Alvarez along with board directors Victor Manuel Garcés, Miguel Eduardo Borrell, and Mario Sánchez Álvarez for alleged ties to organized crime. Alvarez subsequently resigned from his position at the club in August 2020 after 32 years as acting president. Interpol is currently searching for Alvarez in 195 countries and as of June 2, 2021, remains at large.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On December 6, 2020, Cruz Azul faced UNAM on the second semi-final leg of the Guardianes 2020 Liga MX final phase. Although Cruz Azul had a 4–0 lead at the beginning of the second leg, they lost the match 0–4, thus tying in aggregate. Because UNAM won the clubs' week 17 match 1–0, they held the tiebreaker and advanced to the final.


title: Cruz Azul

text: On May 30, 2021, Cruz Azul ended its 23-year Primera División championship drought by beating Santos Laguna 2–1 on aggregate at Estadio Azteca, earning its ninth league championship, after having lost seven finals in the last thirteen years.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The club's crest has stayed relatively consistent since its foundation in the 1920s, with a blue cross in a white circle surrounded by a red square, with the club's name above and below. As years went by and titles were won, the crest was modified to proclaim the Cruz Azul's achievements, adding a larger blue circle/frame after the 1971–72 season showing three stars for each Liga MX championship win (showing eight stars since the end of the 1997 season).


title: Cruz Azul

text: The team currently plays in the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The Cruz Azul's training facilities are named "La Noria", which are located in Xochimilco.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The team returned to the Estadio Azteca in the Apertura 2018 season after spending 22 years at Estadio Ciudad de los Deportes, which has been slated to be demolished. The team has indicated that it intends to build a new stadium, but solid plans such as location have not materialized.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The club has its own official cheerleading club, who were included as part of the institution in 2004 and since then, act as cheerleaders pre-match and during the halftime break.


title: Cruz Azul

text: "Las Celestes" have become part of the tradition of the club. Which is the only Mexican team that include official cheerleaders as part of their group.


title: Cruz Azul

text: Since its inception the team was supported mainly by cement workers. After promotion to the Primera División in the 1960s, more people began to follow the team. In the 1970s when the team managed six of their nine titles even more people joined the group of supporters of the team, until now that in this 21st century according to various surveys is the third team with the most supporters in Mexico, behind the Club Guadalajara and the América respectively, above the club UNAM.


title: Cruz Azul

text: The club became infamous in Mexico for not having won a Mexican league title from 1997 to 2021. For an English-speaking audience, the so-called "Cruz Azul curse" is likened to Neverkusen for German team Bayer Leverkusen, the Curse of the Bambino for MLB baseball's Boston Red Sox, or the Curse of the Billy Goat for MLB's Chicago Cubs. The commonality derives from these teams' inability, no matter the quality of the team relative to their opponents in a tournament or a championship match, to win a championship. The "curse" was broken after their winning of the Guardianes 2021 final match versus Santos Laguna, after scoring 2–1 on May 30, 2021.


title: Poultry farming

text: Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.


title: Poultry farming

text: In the United States, the national organization overseeing poultry production is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the UK, the national organisation is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).