title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Reviewers identified themes including the spread of information across social media, the relationship between politicians and the public, and the role of news media. The episode was later compared to Piggate, an anecdote published in the 2015 biography "Call Me Dave", which alleged that British prime minister of the time, David Cameron, had placed a "private part of his anatomy" into a dead pig's head as an initiation rite at university. The episode garnered seven-day ratings of 2.07million viewers, alongside many viewer complaints to broadcasting regulatory body Ofcom. Mostly positive professional reviews found the episode to be a good opener for the series, plausible in its storyline and well-acted, though some critics dissented. On average, reviewers have ranked the episode middling in comparison to other "Black Mirror" instalments.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: British prime minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear) is woken during the night to learn that Princess Susannah (Lydia Wilson), a beloved royal, has been kidnapped. As ransom, the kidnapper demands that the prime minister have sexual intercourse with a pig, live on national television, for motives unknown. These demands were posted on YouTube and have been viewed by tens of thousands of people, whilst the topic is trending on Twitter. In the morning, news media stop complying with a DSMA-Notice issued by the government which requested that they not broadcast the story. Within hours, tens of millions have seen the video.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Unbeknownst to Callow, Home Secretary Alex Cairns (Lindsay Duncan) orders Special Agent Callett (Alex Macqueen) to arrange for footage to be fabricated. Callett plans for Callow's head to be superimposed on porn star Rod Senseless (Jay Simpson), a difficult task given the kidnapper's technical specifications for the broadcast. After a person at the studio tweets an image of Senseless, the kidnapper sends a news channel a severed finger and a video of Susannah writhing in pain as punishment. In a sharp change of opinion, a majority of the public now expect Callow to follow the kidnapper's demands, to the distress of Callow's wife Jane (Anna Wilson-Jones).


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Meanwhile, an armed team raid a building from where the YouTube video was first uploaded but it is a decoy. The journalist Malaika (Chetna Pandya) learned of the raid from a government staff member to whom she sent sexually explicit selfies. Having filmed the scene, Malaika is shot in the leg as she tries to flee.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Cairns tells Callow that he will jeopardise his public image and family's safety if he refuses to comply with the kidnapper. He reluctantly agrees. As a deterrent to viewers, a painful tone plays before the broadcast begins; possession of a recording will become illegal at midnight. Gravely, Callow has intercourse with a pig while 1.3 billion people watch.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Princess Susannah is released unharmed in London on The Millennium Bridge, 30 minutes before the broadcast begins—a fact Cairns covers up. The finger sent to the news station was the kidnapper's—Turner Prize winner Carlton Bloom, who died by suicide during the broadcast. As Callow vomits in a toilet, ignoring Jane's calls, Cairns tells him that Susannah is safe. A year later, Susannah is pregnant and Callow's approval rating has improved. However, behind closed doors, he begs Jane to speak to him as she silently walks away.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: The executive producers Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones began work on "Black Mirror" in 2010, having previously worked together on other television programmes. The series was commissioned for three hour-long episodes by Channel 4, taking its budget from the comedy department. Brooker's production company Zeppotron produced the show for Endemol. "The National Anthem" was the first episode of "Black Mirror" to air, premiering on 4 December 2011 at 9p.m. The following two episodes, "Fifteen Million Merits" and "The Entire History of You", premiered a week and a fortnight later, respectively. "The National Anthem" was the third script to be pitched to Channel 4, the first of which was "Fifteen Million Merits" and the second of which was not produced.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: The initial idea for the episode involved a celebrity carrying out the sex act. Series creator Charlie Brooker had previously conceived of a short story where the broadcaster Terry Wogan would have to have "full sexual intercourse with a sow" on television in order to secure the release of a kidnapped princess, later mentioning the idea in a 2002 column for "The Guardian". Brooker later became interested in parodying the American action series "24". Whilst working on the story, he realised it would not be humorous. Like his previous work "Dead Set", a 2008 horror series about zombies, he decided to "take something preposterous but make the tone very straight". The title of the episode refers both to "God Save the Queen", the UK's national anthem, and Radiohead song "The National Anthem".


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Brooker also took inspiration from a controversy where Gordon Brown called a member of the public "a bigot" after speaking with her, and also a "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" comic where he believed recalling that "a police chief is required to have sex with a hog". Another inspiration was the reality show "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!", particularly an episode where a celebrity was tasked with consuming a mixture of disgusting animal parts. Annabel Jones described the episode's topic as "humiliation and the public's appetite for humiliation".


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Brooker noted that other animals similar to a pig were considered for the sex act. A duck was believed too small and absurd, whilst a horse or donkey would be too difficult for filming; Brooker also objected to a chicken. Even considered was "a giant wheel of cheese", but a pig was chosen to "[straddle] the line between comic and horrifying." A scene in which Callow spoke to Rod Senseless was removed, as its comedic style was out of place. Another cut scene showed Malaika taken to hospital and left on a gurney as the staff watch Callow have sex with the pig; removing this meant the setting of a hospital for some scenes was unexplained.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Rory Kinnear stars in the episode as Prime Minister Michael Callow. Lindsay Duncan plays the Home Secretary Alex Cairns and Alex Macqueen plays Special Agent Callett, whilst Anna Wilson-Jones had the role of Callow's wife Jane. During the casting process, executive producer Annabel Jones was keen to hire non-comedy actors so that a humorous tone could be avoided. Director Otto Bathurst commented that the production's first choice for every role was hired. Callow's political party is not stated, though Brooker says his blue tie implies that he is a member of the Conservative Party, a right-wing party in Britain. Jones commented that it would have been easy to make the audience hate Callow, but the focus was on the public's appetite for humiliation.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Filming overlapped with the London riots of August 2011. Brooker and his wife Konnie Huq watched the filming of the scene where Callow has sex with the pig. Brooker reported that in the first take, Bathurst did not call "cut", and instead let Kinnear carry on getting closer to the pig, putting his hand on the pig's back, until Kinnear refused to go further. The scene was completed in only a couple of takes and was never designed to be more graphic than the final cut.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: The scene in which Callow attacks Cairns was written to be "visceral", with Brooker noting that he was unsure how a prime minister would act in the situation, and Bathurst commenting that though Callow should be "kicked out of politics", his actions go without consequence. In regards to the scene in which Callow's wife expresses distress to her husband, Brooker registered surprise that some viewers were angry at her character. The scene was intended for her to "[communicate] how upset she is".


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: During UK pre-publicity, the central concept of a pig was deliberately unmentioned; the Channel 4 trailers, which were briefly run on ITV and in cinemas, also avoided mentioning this. This led to some viewers expecting a political thriller. The episode aired in Australia in June 2013, a year and a half after the UK premiere, as part of Studio's "Festival of WTF!" A billboard featuring Callow about to have intercourse with the pig was shown in Kings Cross, New South Wales, in May 2013, but soon removed, with a spokesperson for the channel apologising and plans to show the image in print and online suspended.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: "The National Anthem" is a black comedy and political satire, played straight as a drama. Reviewers varied in finding the episode overall comedic, or only finding humour in limited parts of the episode, such as Rod Senseless's character. A theme identified in the episode was the spread of information amongst a country with both news media and social media such as Twitter. Richard Edwards of "GamesRadar+" wrote that "nobody has any control of the spread of information any more", whilst David Lewis of "Cultbox" said that the society depicted was "so constantly bombarded with data that it is no longer able to process information". Emily Yoshida of "Grantland" commented that this information is not making us better or smarter or happier".


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Reviewers also identified the relationship between politicians and the public as a key theme, with Lewis describing the episode as an "exploration of the potency of public opinion". Michael Ahr of "Den of Geek" commented that the internet serves as a "weapon of attack" in the episode, whilst Jim Goodwin of "Bleeding Cool" noted that "anonymously vented opinions can not only fuel but also help form the actions of government". Ahr believed that the episode is a "condemnation of empty rhetoric and slippery politicians", and Edwards found it "scarily believable" that "politicians are no longer making decisions based on their own judgement, but on the way the story is trending on Twitter". Additionally, Goodwin commented that viewers are made to examine "their own culpability in the media frenzies that surround such events" as that of the kidnapping. Similarly, Corey Atad of "Esquire" found that the episode examines how mainstream news and social media can both "bring out some of the very worst in collective human instincts". The result of the incident, according to John Crace of "The Guardian", is that Callow "lost the love of his wife and gained the sympathy of the nation". In regards to the plot twist that the kidnapper is a famous artist, David Sims of "The A.V. Club" suggested that the kidnapper views the recording of Callow "as a new form of artistic expression".


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: The episode was compared to the American 1959 television anthology "The Twilight Zone", a programme from which Brooker took inspiration. Michael Hogan of "The Telegraph" made further comparisons to British political satire "The Thick of It", with its "corridors-of-power voyeurism", and the British spy drama "Spooks", with its "clock-ticking tension".


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: In September 2015, four years after "The National Anthem" was first broadcast, the "Daily Mail" published allegations that David Cameron—the British prime minister at the time—had placed a "private part of his anatomy" into the mouth of a dead pig as an initiation rite at university. The allegations came from an unauthorised biography of Cameron, "Call Me Dave" by Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott. This incident is widely known as "piggate". "Black Mirror" trended on Twitter following the "Daily Mail" article's publication, and some people used the hashtag #snoutrage, which appears onscreen during the episode, to refer to the incident. Brooker responded on Twitter on the day allegations were first made, denying prior knowledge and describing it the day after as "a complete coincidence, albeit a quite bizarre one". Finding the story perturbing, he remarked that: "I did genuinely for a moment wonder if reality was a simulation, whether it exists only to trick me."


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Airing on Channel 4 on 4 December 2011 at 9p.m., the episode garnered 2.07million viewers, according to seven-day figures from the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB). It was nominated for Best Single Drama at the 2013 Broadcast Awards. However, out of television broadcasts in 2011, "The National Anthem" received the eighth-most complaints to Ofcom, a total of 145 ranging from the use of profanity to the themes of bestiality, kidnapping, suicide, terrorism and torture. An additional complaint came from a woman featured briefly in a vox pop, whose claim of invasion of privacy was not upheld by Ofcom.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: The episode received mostly positive critical reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it holds an approval rating of 100% based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 9.00/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "This inaugural tale of political machinations and elite perversions works as a scalding satire and a nightmare of burgeoning technology gone awry, making it a perfect sampler for viewers seeking to step through the looking glass." It received an A rating in "The A.V. Club", 4.5 out of five stars in "The Telegraph", four out of five stars in "Cultbox", and 3.5 out of five stars in "GamesRadar+". Ahr called the themes of politics and social media "prophetic". Yoshida and reviewers at "TheWrap" both found it the perfect opener for "Black Mirror", with Ahr concurring that it was "an effective opener despite its off-putting premise". However, James Hibberd commented that the episode is "divisive" and reported that fans often recommend beginning with a different episode. The episode's premise, of the prime minister having sex with a pig, was called "devastatingly, horrifyingly simple" by Sims. Edwards felt amusement initially, and later "revulsion and pity" as the episode progressed.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Most reviewers found the episode plausible. Sims commented that "every twist seems organic" and "every decision rational", leading the audience to overlook "the insanity of the premise or any minor plothole". Yoshida believed that the episode has "an airtight internal logic", and Lewis wrote that it was "exactly what you might expect to happen if the situation ever arose". However, Crace found that the premise lacked credibility, and the episode was less believable as it progressed. Edwards criticised that the episode does not provide new insight into social media.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: The acting received a positive critical reception, with Goodwin describing the cast as "high calibre". Ranking Kinnear as Michael Callow to be the 10th best performance in the "Black Mirror" franchise, Brian Tallerico of "Vulture" reviewed that the episode only works due to Kinnear's "emotional commitment to the character and concept". Hogan praised Kinnear's acting "particularly compelling" in his emotional journey "from disbelief to dutiful self-sacrifice". Crace thought his character arc was "both touching and funny". Lewis found him "dignified, stoic and – crucially – likeable", with Goodwin describing him as "flawed yet entirely sympathetic". Lindsay Duncan's role, as Callow's press secretary, was also received positively. Crace found her "understated" acting "a delight", whilst Goodwin praised her "ruthless" performance. Goodwin further praised Tom Goodman-Hill in his role of "the morally malleable face of political spin" and Anna Wilson-Jones as Callow's wife, for bringing "grounded emotional connection" to the episode.


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: "The National Anthem" received middling rankings on many critics' lists of the 23 instalments of "Black Mirror", from best to worst:


title: The National Anthem (Black Mirror)

text: Other critics ranked the 13 episodes in "Black Mirror"s first three series, where "The National Anthem" received varied reviews:


title: Isaac Kappy

text: Isaac Kappy (February 17, 1977 – May 13, 2019) was an American actor and musician. He had roles in the films "Thor" (2011) and "Terminator Salvation" (2009) and in the AMC television series "Breaking Bad". He was a member of the band Monster Paws.


title: Isaac Kappy

text: Kappy made his feature film debut as a hustler in the movie "Beerfest" (2006). He would go on to act in the movies "Not Forgotten", "Fanboys", "Terminator Salvation", "Saint John of Las Vegas" (all 2009), "Klown Kamp Massacre" (2010), "Lemonade Mouth", "Thor", and "10 Years" (all 2011), and the television series "Breaking Bad", "The Night Shift", and "Rachel Dratch's Late Night Snack".


title: Isaac Kappy

text: As a musician, Kappy played in the band Charles McMansion with Tom Sandoval. The group released one recording, the song "T.I.P." (an acronym for Touch In Public), and appeared on the reality show "Vanderpump Rules".


title: Isaac Kappy

text: Kappy appeared as a guest on Alex Jones' radio show "InfoWars" in August 2018, on which he accused multiple movie stars of pedophilia as part of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which involves a cabal of Satan-worshipping child molesters who run a global child sex-trafficking ring. During the broadcast, Jones asked Kappy to be more circumspect and avoid "getting into names", while Kappy briefly insisted Jones was "gaslighting" him by querying his claims. In early January 2021, American lawyer and conspiracy theorist Lin Wood alluded to QAnon when he tweeted without evidence that Kappy had been involved in a wide-ranging attempt to reveal a massive child sexual abuse ring involving Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John Roberts.


title: Isaac Kappy

text: In 2018, Kappy was investigated by police after reportedly threatening actress Paris Jackson and actor Seth Green. Jackson accused Kappy of choking her at a party they were both attending. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) confirmed an investigation, but said it was not active.


title: Isaac Kappy

text: In 2019, Kappy committed suicide by jumping from a bridge into oncoming traffic in Arizona. Around the time of his death, a lengthy note was posted on his Instagram account, in which he opened up about his drug and alcohol abuse, and apologized to Jesus Christ, Donald Trump, and QAnon. The post was captioned, "Beware the man that has nothing to lose, for he has nothing to protect".


title: Robson Green

text: Robson Golightly Green (born 18 December 1964) is an English actor, angler, singer-songwriter and presenter.


title: Robson Green

text: His first major TV role was as hospital porter Jimmy Powell in BBC drama series "Casualty" in 1989. He then went on to portray Fusilier Dave Tucker in the ITV military drama series "Soldier Soldier", between 1991 and 1995. Between 2002 and 2008 he played Dr. Tony Hill in the ITV crime drama series "Wire in the Blood".


title: Robson Green

text: As a TV presenter he has fronted shows such as "Extreme Fishing", "Extreme Fishing Challenge", and "Tales from Northumberland". He currently plays Detective Inspector Geordie Keating on ITV's "Grantchester". He was one half of the singing duo Robson & Jerome, along with fellow "Soldier Soldier" actor Jerome Flynn, who had several No. 1 singles in the 1990s.


title: Robson Green

text: Robson Golightly Green was born on 18 December 1964 in Dilston Hospital in Hexham, Northumberland, and grew up in Dudley, a small mining village south of Cramlington. His father, also named Robson Green, was a miner, and his mother Anne was a cleaner and shopkeeper. He was named in the Northeast tradition of naming the first son after family surnames: Robson was his paternal grandmother's maiden name, while his middle name, Golightly, is the surname of his maternal grandmother, Cissie Golightly, daughter of William Golightly, a miner and well-known trade union leader in the 1920s.


title: Robson Green

text: Green attended Dudley Middle Comprehensive School. After being inspired by jets flying overhead, he decided he wanted to join the Royal Air Force, and at the age of 16, he joined the Air Training Corps, though he decided against a career in the RAF after two weeks at an officer training camp. He also learned to play the guitar, later forming his first band, Solid State, in 1982. He also spent one night a week at the Backworth Drama Centre, and appeared in a series of productions at both school and Backworth.


title: Robson Green

text: Green left school aged 16 with five O-levels, and joined Swan Hunter's shipyard as a draughtsman. On one occasion, he also tried his hand at professional boxing. He attended three boxing training sessions for the play "Francie Nichol", in which he played a boxer. After two years at Swan's, Green decided on a career in acting. After auditioning, he began training under the tutelage of artistic director Max Roberts, his previous director at Backworth. During training he continued his musical career as a member of a successful local band, the Workie Tickets.


title: Robson Green

text: Growing up in Tyneside, Green was chosen to be the lead in a film made by Amber Films that narrated the contemporaneous social problems faced by working-class people in Thatcher's Britain. Each episode examined one aspect of living in a harsh and embittered environment. The soap opera gave Green his big break in film. It was quickly followed by offers of work. Green first made his name as an actor in the BBC series "Casualty" but, after three series, moved to national prominence as fusilier Dave Tucker in the drama series "Soldier Soldier".


title: Robson Green

text: In 1995, one episode called for Green and co-star Jerome Flynn to sing "Unchained Melody". Subsequently, ITV was inundated by people wanting to buy the song and the pair were persuaded by Simon Cowell to release it as a single – a double A-side with "White Cliffs of Dover". It stayed at No. 1 for seven weeks in the UK Singles Chart, selling more than 1.8 million copies and making it the best-selling single of the year and winning the duo the Music Week Awards in 1996 for best single and best album. Subsequently, they had two further No. 1 singles and two No. 1 albums, all remakes of standards.


title: Robson Green

text: The song gave Green the opportunity to sign a long-term deal with ITV to star in several of the network's dramas, including "Touching Evil", "Grafters" and "Reckless". In 1996, he set up an independent production company, Coastal Productions, with business partner Sandra Jobling to give youngsters from the North East the opportunities he struggled for. The company has since produced or co-produced most of Green's television work, as well as local productions at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2002, Green starred as clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill in the crime drama "Wire in the Blood".


title: Robson Green

text: Green's production company has brought at least four new dramas to the small screen in recent years, including the massive ratings hit "Christmas Lights". The success of this one-off drama led to a series being commissioned under the name "Northern Lights", which was followed by a sequel called "City Lights". Coastal also produces drama series, including "Hereafter" starring Stephen Tompkinson and Dervla Kirwan.


title: Robson Green

text: In 1995, Green won the Smash Hits Poll Winner's Party award for Favourite TV Actor. In 1997, Green starred in the TV film, "The Student Prince" which is no relation to either the Romberg operetta or the 1954 MGM film.


title: Robson Green

text: In July 1998, Green received an honorary degree from the University of Northumbria and, in September 2006, he was voted by the UK general public at No. 35 in a poll of TV's greatest stars.


title: Robson Green

text: In 2000, Green starred with James Bolam, Susan Jameson and Jamie Bell in the ITV drama "Close and True". In 2001, he starred in the six-part ITV drama "Take Me".


title: Robson Green

text: In 2002, Green starred with Caroline Goodall in the TV movie "Me and Mrs. Jones". In December 2002, he released his first solo album, "Moment in Time", which was composed of cover versions (including the song "Me and Mrs. Jones"). However, unlike his releases with Jerome Flynn, the album was a commercial failure, peaking at No. 49 in the UK.


title: Robson Green

text: In 2003, Green starred in the ITV mini-series "Unconditional Love" and in the BBC television series "Trust". In 2005, he starred in two series, "Like Father Like Son", and "Rocket Man" in which he played a widower trying to build a rocket to send his dead wife's ashes into space.


title: Robson Green

text: Green presents his own series "Extreme Fishing with Robson Green" and the spin-off "Robson's Extreme Fishing Challenge", where he travels over the world investigating and participating in the sport, coining fishing catchphrases such as "get in" and "we're in". During 2009, while promoting the second series on "BBC Breakfast," Green claimed that 90% of all coarse fish caught by anglers die. This rapidly caused an angry response from coarse fishing anglers in the UK who believed this comment to be unsubstantiated and potentially damaging to the sport.


title: Robson Green

text: In December 2009, ITV presented the documentary "Robson Green's Wild Swimming Adventure", a tour of swimming locales around the UK.


title: Robson Green

text: In 2010 Green had a major role in the television film "Joe Maddison's War". Directed by Patrick Collerton, it presented a view of World War II through the eyes of shipyard workers and World War I veterans who served in the Home Guard during the Blitz.


title: Robson Green

text: In July 2010, Green began filming the seventh series of BBC drama "Waterloo Road" appearing from May 2011 to July 2011.


title: Robson Green

text: In 2011, Green starred in the third series of the BBC Three show "Being Human" in which he played a werewolf named McNair.


title: Robson Green

text: In 2013 and 2015, Green starred in the fourth and fifth series of the war-drama series "Strike Back", as Lt Colonel Philippe Locke, a former SAS operative.


title: Robson Green

text: In October 2013, Green began presenting "Tales from Northumberland with Robson Green" on ITV, a factual series about his home county of Northumberland. A second series began airing in February 2015 and a third in February 2016.


title: Robson Green

text: Since 2014, he has portrayed Geordie Keating in the ITV drama series "Grantchester", starring alongside James Norton and later Tom Brittney. A second series began in March 2016 and a third in April 2017.


title: Robson Green

text: In March 2016, during an appearance on "The One Show", Green confirmed he would present a new series for ITV called "Tales from the Coast with Robson Green", which began airing in January 2017. In April 2016, he presented a one-off documentary "The Flying Scotsman with Robson Green". He also presented a one-off documentary "Robson Crusoe: A Surprising Adventure" and a six-part series called "Robson Green's Coastal Lives", both for ITV.


title: Robson Green

text: In 2020, Green began recording "Hadrian's Wall with Robson Green" a 3-part documentary following him walking the 80 miles from "Wallsend" west to "Bowness". The series was commissioned by "Channel 5" and made by "Firecracker Films".


title: Robson Green

text: It is being rumoured as of 2022 that Green alongside Mark Benton will be reuniting as Colin and Howie for another series of Northern Lights.


title: Robson Green

text: Green is a supporter of higher taxes on the wealthy and protecting the NHS, saying "Anybody who tells me they’re not going to pay tax… we’ve got an NHS system on its knees… I tell you what, my son was in real trouble when he was young and we took him to the hospital, there were four specialists waiting for him. That’s why you pay your taxes. We’ve got a police system who protect us, we’ve got firemen who put out fires. We’ve got defence, man. That’s what tax is for." He then went onto claim "I’m proud to be a 50 per cent tax-payer". He has also been an outspoken critic of Jimmy Carr for using a tax avoidance scheme in 2012. He said of Carr, "Wanker. I mean, just wanker. No, he’s not getting away with it for me".


title: Robson Green

text: Green was introduced to occupational therapist Alison Ogilvie by his close friend, television director Andrew Gunn. Green and Ogilvie married on 22 June 1991, but separated eight years later. Green met his second wife, former Page 3 model Vanya Seager, while recording "Unchained Melody" at BMG Records in 1995. They later had a son, Taylor Seager-Green (born 2000). In 2001, the couple married at Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire after a family celebration in Mauritius. On 30 October 2011, the couple issued a statement saying that their marriage had "irretrievably broken down" and that they were separating. In April 2016 it was reported that Green was involved in an affair causing the break-down of a marriage between a vicar and his wife.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Kellie Dawn Pickler (born June 28, 1986) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and television personality. Pickler gained fame as a contestant on the fifth season of "American Idol" and finished in sixth place. In 2006, she signed to 19 Recordings and BNA Records as a recording artist. Her debut album, "Small Town Girl", was released later that year and has sold over 900,000 copies. The album, which was certified gold by the RIAA, produced three singles on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs charts: "Red High Heels" at No. 15, "I Wonder" at No. 14, and "Things That Never Cross a Man's Mind" at No. 16.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler released her self-titled second album in 2008 that produced four singles: "Don't You Know You're Beautiful" at No. 21, "Best Days of Your Life" at No. 9 (which she co-wrote with Taylor Swift), "Didn't You Know How Much I Loved You" at No. 14, and "Makin' Me Fall in Love Again" at No. 30.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: In 2012, Pickler was ranked as the 14th best "American Idol" alumna. In October 2012, she parted ways with her former record label and signed with Black River Entertainment.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On May 21, 2013, Pickler and her partner, Derek Hough, were declared the winners of the sixteenth season of "Dancing with the Stars." In 2016, she was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: From 2017 to 2019, she co-hosted the nationally syndicated daytime TV talk show "Pickler & Ben" with comedian Ben Aaron.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Kellie Pickler was born June 28, 1986, at Stanly Memorial Hospital in Albemarle, North Carolina, to Cynthia Morton and Clyde "Bo" Raymond Pickler Jr. Her mother left when Kellie was two years old, then returned and took custody of her for two years. After this, the court returned Kellie to her grandparents when she was 12 and they raised her to adulthood because her father was absent in her life. Pickler says the major influences in her life are her grandfather, Clyde Raymond Pickler Sr., a former electrician, and grandmother, Faye Pickler. Pickler graduated in 2004 from North Stanly High School in New London, North Carolina. She was a cheerleader and beauty queen. She sang "On the Side of Angels" by LeAnn Rimes at her high school graduation.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: She worked as a carhop at a Sonic Drive-In franchise, and in 2005, she made an appearance on WSOC-TV's "Gimme the Mike! Charlotte" contest. She finished in second place. She participated in the Miss America circuit and won the "Miss Stanly County" pageant at age 17 and subsequently competed for Miss North Carolina 2004.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: The 19-year-old Pickler auditioned for "American Idol" in the fall of 2005 in Greensboro, North Carolina. She sang both Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" and Martina McBride's "A Broken Wing". The judges sent her to Hollywood. Pickler advanced through the semi-final rounds in February. On March 9, she reached the Top 12.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler was among judge Simon Cowell's favorites. He once predicted Pickler would be in the final three, and said he preferred her over the previous season's winner, Carrie Underwood. Recognized for her "quirky" personality and Southern charm, Pickler gained attention on the show by saying that she had hardly ever performed before real audiences, and by mispronouncing words. She was compared to Jessica Simpson in a March 27-story in "US Weekly" magazine titled "Kellie: The Next Jessica Simpson", due to her "sweet Southern style and ditzy demeanor". Pickler has stated in the past a previous ignorance of common popular culture before her "Idol" fame.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: After her elimination, she appeared in numerous shows promoting the TV show and performed the song "Walkin' After Midnight" in some of her appearances.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On May 6, 2006, she returned to Albemarle, North Carolina, for a parade and a reunion with her father. She received a key to the city from the mayor of Albemarle. The mayor also proclaimed the day as "Kellie Pickler Day". Pickler also received numerous awards from local and statewide government officials praising her accomplishments as a contestant on the "American Idol" television show.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler pursued her recording aspirations in Nashville, Tennessee, shortly thereafter. On July 17, 2006, she signed a record deal with 19 Recordings/BNA Records. She later announced it herself on "The View". She was part of the "American Idols LIVE! Tour 2006", performing for three months in various cities. During that period, Pickler worked on her album in collaboration with top industry experts in different cities wherever the tour took her.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Her first single, "Red High Heels", debuted on September 13, 2006, and its music video was officially released on October 20, 2006. It received a nomination for the CMT Video Awards for "Breakthrough Video of the Year".


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Her debut album, "Small Town Girl", released on October 31, 2006, topped Billboard's Top Country Albums and landed at number nine on the "Billboard" 200 selling over 79,000 copies in its first week, making Pickler the highest-selling first-week sales for a new artist in 2006. The album includes five songs that Pickler co-wrote with songwriters Chris Lindsey, Aimee Mayo, and Karyn Rochelle.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On January 18, 2007, Pickler co-hosted "The View" and was presented with a gold record by Rosie O'Donnell, certifying that her album has reached the 500,000 sales mark. She also performed her second single, "I Wonder", which is a personal song about her absent relationship with her mother, Cynthia Morton. It was the first performance of the song on national television.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: She was also part of Brad Paisley's "Bonfires & Amplifiers" concert tour from April 2007 through October as one of the opening acts. The tour was booked in at least 37 cities across North America including a couple of stops in Canada.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: In September 2007, Pickler released a version of "Santa Baby" for a Christmas country compilation. A month later, at the ASCAP Awards in Nashville, Tennessee, Pickler received a songwriter award for co-writing "Red High Heels". She performed "I Wonder", at the 2007 CMA Awards. During the performance, she was visibly overcome with emotion and struggled to even finish the song before bursting into tears. The performance received a standing ovation. She was also nominated for the Horizon Award. The performance led her to receive 3 CMT awards the following April.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: While "Things That Never Cross a Man's Mind" was climbing the country charts (it eventually reached number sixteen), Pickler returned to the studio to record her second studio album for 19 Recordings/BNA Records. She performed the debut single, "Don't You Know You're Beautiful" at the ACM Awards on May 18, 2008, and received a good response from the audience. She was nominated for "Top New Female Vocalist", but the award went to Taylor Swift.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: "Don't You Know You're Beautiful" was released to radio in June 2008 and was a Top 25 hit for Pickler, peaking eventually at number twenty-one. Her second album, "Kellie Pickler", was released on September 30, 2008, and debuted at the top of the country chart, as well as number nine on the "Billboard" 200, selling over 43,000 copies in its first week. It matched the debuting spots of her first album, "Small Town Girl".


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On November 12, 2008, Pickler performed the second single from her album "Best Days of Your Life" at the CMA Awards. She was also nominated for "New Artist of the Year" for the second year in a row, but lost to Lady Antebellum. "Best Days of Your Life" made its radio debut in November 2008, and debuted at number 56. The song climbed very slowly up the chart, but ended up becoming Pickler's first Top 10 hit on the Hot Country Songs chart. After nearly 40 weeks on the chart, the song peaked at number nine in August 2009. A music video was made by Roman White, featuring Taylor Swift, who co-wrote and sang background harmony vocals on the song.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler was nominated for "Female Video of the Year" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards for "Don't You Know You're Beautiful". She lost once again to Swift. She also presented the award for "USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year" with "Idol" judge Randy Jackson.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler accompanied Swift on the first leg of her Fearless Tour 2009. In June, she launched her first ever headline concert tour in promotion of her self-titled album. On October 8, it was announced that Pickler would be part of the second leg of "Fearless Tour".


title: Kellie Pickler

text: "Didn't You Know How Much I Loved You", a re-recording from Pickler's first album "Small Town Girl", was released as the album's third single on August 30, 2009. The song debuted at number 55 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot Country Songs chart, and became her fifth Top 20 hit, peaking at number fourteen in February 2010.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On October 26, Pickler won the title of Country Weekly's poll of most beautiful woman in country music for the second year in a row. Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood were the second and third places, respectively.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: "Makin' Me Fall in Love Again" was released as the album's fourth single on April 19, 2010. It debuted at number 53 and peaked at number 30.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: It was announced that Pickler's third album would be produced by Frank Liddell, known for producing country artist Miranda Lambert's albums. "Tough" was released on June 13, 2011, as the lead-off single to Pickler's third album, "100 Proof", which was released on January 24, 2012. The album debuted at number seven on the "Billboard" 200 and at number two on the Top Country Albums chart. "Tough" reached a peak of number 30 on the Hot Country Songs chart, while the album's title track, which was released as the second single in April 2012, peaked at number 50 on the same chart.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On June 27, 2012, ABC News Radio reported that Pickler parted ways with Sony Nashville. Pickler's manager told ABC News Radio, "Kellie's contract with Sony came to an end and they mutually decided not to renew it".


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On July 10, 2012, she sang "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch at the 2012 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On October 8, 2012, CMT reported Pickler had signed with the independent record label Black River Entertainment.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler's first single with Black River Entertainment, "Someone Somewhere Tonight," was released on May 14, 2013. After eight weeks, it reached a peak of number 49 on the "Billboard" Country Airplay chart in July 2013, and served as the lead-off single to Pickler's fourth album, "The Woman I Am", which was released on November 11, 2013. Pickler wrote the title track with her husband, songwriter Kyle Jacobs.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: "Little Bit Gypsy" and "Closer to Nowhere" were released as the album's second and third singles and reached peaks of number 50 and number 59 on the Country Airplay chart, respectively. A promotional single, "Feeling Tonight," was made available as a digital download on June 2, 2015, but never received an official radio release. It was later announced in June 2016, that Pickler had parted ways with Black River.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On May 21, 2013, Pickler and Derek Hough were announced the winners of the sixteenth season of "Dancing with the Stars". She performed a well received super sized freestyle, which scored a perfect 30 and garnered effusive praise from the dance judges. She performed "Little Bit Gypsy" on November 25, 2013, episode in the seventeenth season.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler's parents split up the day after her second birthday; a year later, in July 1989, her mother vanished. During periods when her father, Bo, was incarcerated, she would live with her grandparents outside Albemarle, northeast of Charlotte. In 1992, Pickler's mother returned to Albemarle, but rarely made contact with her. But in March 1995, with Bo Pickler in prison for armed robbery, her mother was granted custody. Pickler was in the fourth grade. In a February 2006 interview with the "Charlotte Observer", Pickler said: "She got custody of me for two years... During that time, she was physically and mentally abusive of me." In a 1997 court filing, Pickler's grandparents said that her mother had moved to Union County with her and treated her harshly. The court restored custody to the grandparents. Her mother vanished again, and Pickler has not heard from her since. Her father, whom she describes as an alcoholic and drug addict, served a three-year-nine-month prison sentence at Florida State Prison for aggravated assault and battery stemming from a 2003 stabbing incident. He was released on May 6, 2006, a week after her elimination from "Idol". In an April 2006 interview with NBC Pickler said, "One thing that's so important in life is we learn to forgive others. I ask the Lord every day to forgive me for my sins and for things that I've done wrong. And who am I to not forgive someone for what they've done?" ..."God tells us to love everyone."


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On February 26, 2007, she met her personal "idol" and strongest influence, Dolly Parton. The surprise was arranged by Sony BMG Nashville chairman Joe Galante.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: In 2007, Pickler was in a relationship with Nashville Predators player Jordin Tootoo and visited his family in Nunavut. Later that year, the two broke up.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler is close friends with Carrie Underwood; Taylor Swift, who co-wrote Pickler's second single "Best Days of Your Life" from her album "Kellie Pickler"; and her "American Idol" roommate, Katharine McPhee she was a bridesmaid at McPhee's 2008 wedding.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: In June 2008, she joined Carrie Underwood, a vegetarian since childhood, in giving up eating meat. Pickler stated that she initially decided to go vegetarian for health reasons, but a television advertisement that vegetarian Pamela Anderson did for animal rights group PETA piqued her curiosity. "One night I couldn't sleep and I was up and just Googling random stuff and I'm like, 'Hmmm, PETA.' I saw all the videos and I just thought it was horrible. It's animal cruelty. A lot of it has to do with knowing what happens to the animals and it really bothered me and so I will not eat meat." In May 2009, it was announced that Pickler was nominated for, and won, the title of "World's Sexiest Vegetarian" by PETA.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: After two and a half years of dating, Pickler became engaged to songwriter Kyle Jacobs on June 15, 2010, the day of her late grandmother's birthday, after he proposed on a beach at sunset. For a background piece on "Dancing with the Stars", Pickler related that the couple had planned an elaborate ceremony, but as the date approached, "I looked at him and said, 'Baby, this ain't us.'" On January 1, 2011, she and Jacobs eloped and married in a "small, intimate ceremony on a private island in the Caribbean".


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On September 4, 2012, Pickler shaved her head on "Good Morning America" in support of her friend, Summer Holt Miller, who started chemotherapy after breast surgery.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: In 2015, it was announced that Pickler and Jacobs would star in a 13-episode reality show for CMT entitled "I Love Kellie Pickler". The show premiered on November 5, 2015.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler actively supports St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where she helps raise funds and gives kids special visits. She also participates in charitable events to help raise funds for various organizations. She has performed to help raise funds for the "N.C. Children's PROMISE" to benefit the Children's Hospital on November 12, 2006, to help refurbish the Hurricane Katrina-damaged NFL Youth Education Towns Boys & Girls Club of New Orleans on December 16, 2006, visited St. Jude Children's Research Hospital on January 12, 2007, and visited Pennington Elementary School on February 1, 2007. "When you're able to give back to your communities and organizations like St. Jude, it's a great thing," Pickler said. "It's been a great experience, and I encourage anyone and everyone to help."


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler participated with other country artists in an online auction for charity by Mario Magro: Kiss for a Cause Foundation Celebrity Auction held June 15–25, 2007, in support of orphaned and abandoned children. The event auctioned off celebrity lip prints and signatures pressed on the inside of Mario Magro Crystal Le Coop handbags at the 42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. In November 2007, Pickler appeared on a celebrity edition of the quiz show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?", playing for the charities of her choice, (American Red Cross and the AARP's Grandparenting Program). During the show, she was asked to name the European country for which Budapest is the capital, to which she responded "...I thought Europe "was" a country ...I know they speak French there. Is France a country?" She chose the copy cheat, allowing her to go along with the 3rd grader's correct response of Hungary.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: Pickler has participated in three tours on behalf of United Service Organizations. The first, in late 2007 and early 2008, took her to Iraq; the second, in December 2008, included stops in Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and England. In January 2010, Pickler made stops in Iraq and Kuwait on a 10-day tour with Randy Houser and Jamey Johnson. The three country stars "played remote bases on the front lines of the war zone, and the sound of gun fire became their frequent companion at night."


title: Kellie Pickler

text: In early August 2009, Pickler participated in ABC's ""'s rebuilding of James Terpenning's family home in Beavercreek, Ohio. Pickler performed a free concert at the home, and helped during reconstruction.


title: Kellie Pickler

text: On June 26, 2016, on an episode of "Celebrity Family Feud", Pickler and her team won $25,000 for her charity, USO.


title: Amber Fort

text: Amer Fort or Amber Fort is a fort located in Amer, Rajasthan, India. Amer is a town with an area of located from Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Amber city and Amber fort were founded by ruler Alan Singh of Chanda dynasty of Meenas. Located high on a hill, it is the principal tourist attraction in Jaipur. Amer Fort is known for its artistic style elements. With its large ramparts and series of gates and cobbled paths, the fort overlooks Maota Lake, which is the main source of water for the Amer Palace.


title: Amber Fort

text: Amer Palace is great example of Rajput architecture. Some of its buildings and work have influence of Mughal architecture. Constructed of red sandstone and marble, the attractive, opulent palace is laid out on four levels, each with a courtyard. It consists of the Diwan-e-Aam, or "Hall of Public Audience", the Diwan-e-Khas, or "Hall of Private Audience", the Sheesh Mahal (mirror palace), or Jai Mandir, and the Sukh Niwas where a cool climate is artificially created by winds that blow over a water cascade within the palace. Hence, the Amer Fort is also popularly known as the "Amer Palace". The palace was the residence of the Rajput Maharajas and their families. At the entrance to the palace near the fort's Ganesh Gate, there is a temple dedicated to Shila Devi, a Goddess of the Chaitanya cult, which was given to Raja Man Singh when he defeated the Raja of Jessore, Bengal in 1604. (Jessore is now in Bangladesh). Raja Man Singh had 12 queens so he made 12 rooms, one for each Queen. Each room had a staircase connected to the King’s room but the Queens were not to go upstairs. Raja Jai Singh had only one queen so he built one room equal to three old queen’s rooms.


title: Amber Fort

text: This palace, along with Jaigarh Fort, is located immediately above on the Cheel ka Teela (Hill of Eagles) of the same Aravalli range of hills. The palace and Jaigarh Fort are considered one complex, as the two are connected by a subterranean passage. This passage was meant as an escape route in times of war to enable the royal family members and others in the Amer Fort to shift to the more redoubtable Jaigarh Fort. Annual tourist visitation to the Amer Palace was reported by the Superintendent of the Department of Archaeology and Museums as 5000 visitors a day, with 1.4 million visitors during 2007. At the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 2013, Amer Fort, along with five other forts of Rajasthan, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the group Hill Forts of Rajasthan.


title: Amber Fort

text: Amer, or Amber, derives its name from the Ambikeshwar Temple, built atop the Cheel ka Teela. Ambikashwara is a local name for the god Shiva. However, local folklore suggests that the fort derives its name from Amba, the Mother Goddess Durga.


title: Amber Fort

text: Amer Palace is situated on a forested hill promontory that juts into Maota Lake near the town of Amer, about from Jaipur city, the capital of Rajasthan. The palace is near National Highway 11C to Delhi. A narrow 4WD road leads up to the entrance gate, known as the Suraj Pol (Sun Gate) of the fort. It is now considered much more ethical for tourists to take jeep rides up to the fort, instead of riding the elephants.


title: Amber Fort

text: Amber was a Meena state, which was made the capital of Dhundhar after Khoh by Kakil Deo, the son of Dulherai, after defeating the Meenas.


title: Amber Fort

text: The state of Jaipur was earlier known as Amber or Dhundhar and was controlled by Meena chiefs of five different tribes who were under suzerainty of the Bargurjar Rajput Raja of Deoti. Later a Kachhwaha prince Dulha Rai destroyed the sovereignty of Meenas and also defeated Bargurjars of Deoli and took Dhundhar fully under Kachwaha rule.


title: Amber Fort

text: The Amber Fort were originally built by Raja Man Singh. Jai Singh I expanded it. Improvements and additions were done successive rulers over the next 150 years, until the Kachwahas shifted their capital to Jaipur during the time of Sawai Jai Singh II, in 1727. Amer was known in the medieval period as Dhundar (meaning attributed to a sacrificial mount in the western frontiers) and ruled by the Kachwahas from the 11th century onwards – between 1037 and 1727 AD, till the capital was moved from Amer to Jaipur. The history of Amer is indelibly linked to these rulers as they founded their empire at Amer.


title: Amber Fort

text: The Palace is divided into six separate but main sections each with its own entry gate and courtyard. The main entry is through the Suraj Pol (Sun Gate) which leads to the first main courtyard. This was the place where armies would hold victory parades with their war bounty on their return from battles, which were also witnessed by the Royal family's womenfolk through the latticed windows. This gate was built exclusively and was provided with guards as it was the main entry into the palace. It faced east towards the rising sun, hence the name. Royal cavalcades and dignitaries entered the palace through this gate.


title: Amber Fort

text: Jaleb Chowk is an Arabic phrase meaning a place for soldiers to assemble. This is one of the four courtyards of Amer Palace, which was built during Sawai Jai Singh's reign (1693–1743 AD). Maharaja's personal bodyguards held parades here under the command of the army commander or "Fauj Bakshi". The Maharaja used to inspect the guards contingent. Adjacent to the courtyard were the horse stables, with the upper-level rooms occupied by the guards.


title: Amber Fort

text: An impressive stairway from Jalebi Chowk leads into the main palace grounds. Here, at the entrance to the right of the stairway steps is the Sila Devi temple where the Rajput Maharajas worshipped, starting with Maharaja Mansingh in the 16th century until the 1980s, when the animal sacrifice ritual (sacrifice of a buffalo) practiced by the royalty was stopped.


title: Amber Fort

text: Ganesh Pol, or the Ganesh Gate, named after the Hindu god Lord Ganesh, who removes all obstacles in life, is the entry into the private palaces of the Maharajas. It is a three-level structure with many frescoes that were also built at the orders of the Mirza Raja Jai Singh (1621–1627). Above this gate is the Suhag Mandir where ladies of the royal family used to watch functions held in the Diwan-i-Aam through latticed marble windows called "".


title: Amber Fort

text: On the right side of the Jalebi Chowk, there is a small but an elegant temple called the Sila Devi temple (Sila Devi was an incarnation of Kali or Durga). The entrance to the temple is through a double door covered in silver with a raised relief. The main deity inside the sanctum is flanked by two lions made of silver. The legend attributed to the installation of this deity is that Maharaja Man Singh sought blessings from Kali for victory in the battle against the Raja of Jessore in Bengal. The goddess instructed the Raja, in a dream, to retrieve her image from the sea bed and install and worship it. The Raja, after he won the battle of Bengal in 1604, retrieved the idol from the sea and installed it in the temple and called it Sila Devi as it was carved out of one single stone slab. At the entrance to the temple, there is also a carving of Lord Ganesha, which is made out of a single piece of coral.


title: Amber Fort

text: Another version of the Sila Devi installation is that Raja Man Singh, after defeating the Raja of Jessore, received a gift of a black stone slab which was said to have a link to the Mahabharata epic story in which Kansa had killed older siblings of Lord Krishna on this stone. In exchange for this gift, Man Singh returned the kingdom he had won to the Raja of Bengal. This stone was then used to carve the image of Durga Mahishasuramardini, who had slain the demon king Mahishasura and installed it in the fort's temple as Sila Devi. The Sila Devi was worshiped from then onwards as the lineage deity of the Rajput family of Jaipur. However, their family deity continued to be Jamva Mata of Ramgarh.


title: Amber Fort

text: Another practice that is associated with this temple is the religious rites of animal sacrifice during the festival days of Navrathri (a nine-day festival celebrated twice a year). The practice was to sacrifice a buffalo and also goats on the eighth day of the festival in front of the temple, which would be done in the presence of the royal family, watched by a large gathering of devotees. This practice was banned under the law from 1975, after which the sacrifice was held within the palace grounds in Jaipur, strictly as a private event with only the close kin of the royal family watching the event. However, now the practice of animal sacrifice has been totally stopped at the temple premises and offerings made to the goddess are only of the vegetarian type.


title: Amber Fort

text: The second courtyard, up the main stairway of the first level courtyard, houses the Diwan-i-Aam or the Public Audience Hall. Built with a double row of columns, the Diwan-i-Aam is a raised platform with 27 colonnades, each of which is mounted with an elephant-shaped capital, with galleries above it. As the name suggests, the Raja (King) held audience here to hear and receive petitions from the public.


title: Amber Fort

text: The third courtyard is where the private quarters of the Maharaja, his family and attendants were located. This courtyard is entered through the Ganesh Pol or Ganesh Gate, which is embellished with mosaics and sculptures. The courtyard has two buildings, one opposite to the other, separated by a garden laid in the fashion of the Mughal Gardens. The building to the left of the entrance gate is called the Jai Mandir, which is exquisitely embellished with glass inlaid panels and multi-mirrored ceilings. The mirrors are of convex shape and designed with colored foil and paint which would glitter bright under candlelight at the time it was in use. Also known as Sheesh Mahal (mirror palace), the mirror mosaics and colored glasses were a "glittering jewel box in flickering candlelight". Sheesh mahal was built by King Man Singh in the 16th century and completed in 1727. It is also the foundation year of Jaipur state. However, most of this work was allowed to deteriorate during the period 1970–80 but has since then been in the process of restoration and renovation. The walls around the hall hold carved marble relief panels. The hall provides enchanting vistas of the Maota Lake.


title: Amber Fort

text: On top of Jai Mandir is Jas Mandir, a hall of private audience with floral glass inlays and alabaster relief work.


title: Amber Fort

text: The other building seen in the courtyard is opposite to the Jai Mandir and is known as the Sukh Niwas or Sukh Mahal (Hall of Pleasure). This hall is approached through a sandalwood door. The walls are decorated with marble inlay work with niches called "". A piped water supply flows through an open channel that runs through this edifice keeping the environs cool, as in an air-conditioned environment. The water from this channel flows into the garden.


title: Amber Fort

text: A particular attraction here is the "magic flower" carved marble panel at the base of one of the pillars around the mirror palace depicting two hovering butterflies; the flower has seven unique designs including a fishtail, lotus, hooded cobra, elephant trunk, lion's tail, cob of corn, and scorpion, each one of which is visible by a special way of partially hiding the panel with the hands.


title: Amber Fort

text: The garden, located between the Jai Mandir on the east and the Sukh Niwas on the west, both built on high platforms in the third courtyard, was built by Mirza Raja Jai Singh (1623–68). It is patterned on the lines of the Chahar Bagh or Mughal Garden. It is in a sunken bed, shaped in a hexagonal design. It is laid out with narrow channels lined with marble around a star-shaped pool with a fountain at the center. Water for the garden flows in cascades through channels from the Sukh Niwas and also from the cascade channels called the ""chini khana niches"" that originate on the terrace of the Jai Mandir.


title: Amber Fort

text: Tripolia gate means three gates. It is access to the palace from the west. It opens in three directions, one to the Jaleb Chowk, another to the Man Singh Palace and the third one to the Zenana Deorhi on the south.


title: Amber Fort

text: The Lion Gate, the premier gate, was once a guarded gate; it leads to the private quarters in the palace premises and is titled 'Lion Gate' to suggest strength. Built during the reign of Sawai Jai Singh (1699–1743 AD), it is covered with frescoes; its alignment is zigzag, probably made so from security considerations to attack intruders.


title: Amber Fort

text: The fourth courtyard is where the Zenana (Royal family women, including concubines or mistresses) lived. This courtyard has many living rooms where the queens resided and who were visited by the king at his choice without being found out as to which queen he was visiting, as all the rooms open into a common corridor.


title: Amber Fort

text: South of this courtyard lies the Palace of Man Singh I, which is the oldest part of the palace fort. The palace took 25 years to build and was completed in 1599 during the reign of Raja Man Singh I (1589–1614). It is the main palace. In the central courtyard of the palace is the pillared baradari or pavilion; frescoes and colored tiles decorate the rooms on the ground and upper floors. This pavilion (which used to be curtained for privacy) was used as the meeting venue by the maharanis (queens of the royal family). All sides of this pavilion are connected to several small rooms with open balconies. The exit from this palace leads to the town of Amer, a heritage town with many temples, palatial houses and mosques.


title: Amber Fort

text: The queen mothers and the Raja's consorts lived in this part of the palace in Zanani Deorhi, which also housed their female attendants. The queen mothers took a deep interest in building temples in Amer town.


title: Amber Fort

text: Six forts of Rajasthan, namely, Amber Fort, Chittor Fort, Gagron Fort, Jaisalmer Fort, Kumbhalgarh and Ranthambore Fort were included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list during the 37th meeting of the World Heritage Committee in Phnom Penh during June 2013. They were recognized as a serial cultural property and examples of Rajput military hill architecture.


title: Amber Fort

text: The town of Amer, which is an integral and inevitable entry point to Amer Palace, is now a heritage town with its economy dependent on the large influx of tourists (4,000 to 5,000 a day during peak tourist season). This town is spread over an area of and has eighteen temples, three Jain mandirs, and three mosques. It has been listed by the World Monument Fund (WMF) as one of the 100 endangered sites in the world; funds for conservation are provided by the Robert Wilson Challenge Grant. As of 2005, some 87 elephants lived within the fort grounds, but several were said to be suffering from malnutrition.


title: Amber Fort

text: Conservation works have been undertaken at the Amer Palace grounds at a cost of Rs 40 crores (US$8.88 million) by the Amer Development and Management Authority (ADMA). However, these renovation works have been a subject of intense debate and criticism with respect to their suitability to maintain and retain the historicity and architectural features of the ancient structures. Another issue which has been raised is the commercialization of the place.


title: Amber Fort

text: A film unit shooting a film at the Amer Fort damaged a 500-year-old canopy, demolished the old limestone roof of Chand Mahal, drilled holes to fix sets and spread large quantities of sand in Jaleb Chowk in utter disregard and violation of the Rajasthan Monuments, Archaeological Sites and Antique Act (1961).


title: Amber Fort

text: The Jaipur Bench of the Rajasthan High Court intervened and stopped the film shooting with the observation that "unfortunately, not only the public but especially the concerned (sic) authorities have become blind, deaf and dumb by the glitter of money. Such historical protected monuments have become a source of income."


title: Amber Fort

text: Several groups have raised concerns regarding the abuse of elephants and their trafficking and have highlighted what some consider the inhumane practice of riding elephants up to the Amber Palace complex. The organization PETA as well as the central zoo authority have taken up this serious issue. The Haathi gaon (Elephant village) is said to be in violation of captive animal controls, and a PETA team found elephants chained with painful spikes, blind, sick and injured elephants forced to work, and elephants with mutilated tusks and ears. In 2017, A New York-based tour operator announced it would use Jeeps instead of elephants for the trip to Amber Fort, saying "It’s not worth endorsing … some really significant mistreatment of animals."


title: Amber Fort

text: An engraving of a painting of the fort by W. Purser, under the title "Shuhur, Jeypore", was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1834, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The Tamil calendar is a sidereal solar calendar used by the Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It is also used in Puducherry, and by the Tamil population in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, and Mauritius.


title: Tamil calendar

text: It is used in contemporary times for cultural, religious and agricultural events, with the Gregorian calendar largely used for official purposes both within and outside India. The Tamil calendar is based on the classical Hindu solar calendar also used in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Manipur, Nepal, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Punjab.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The calendar follows a 60-year cycle that is also very ancient and is observed by most traditional calendars of India and China. This is related to 5 12-year revolutions of Jupiter around the Sun and one that adds up to 60 years and the orbit of Nakshatras (stars) as described in the Surya Siddhanta.


title: Tamil calendar

text: In the Gregorian year 2022, the Tamil year starts on 14 April 2022, Kaliyuga 5124. The Vikrama and Shalivahana (Saka) eras are also used.


title: Tamil calendar

text: There are several references in early Tamil literature to the new year. Nakkeerar, Sangam period author of the "Neṭunalvāṭai", wrote in the third century CE that the Sun travels each year from Mesha/Chittirai in mid-April through 11 successive signs of the zodiac. Kūdalūr Kiḻar in the third century CE refers to Mesha Rāsi/Chittirai i.e. mid-April as the commencement of the year in the Puṟanāṉūṟu. The Tolkappiyam is the oldest surviving Tamil grammar text that divides the year into six seasons where Chihthirrai i.e. mid-April marks the start of the "Ilavenil" season or Summer. The 5th century Silappadhigaaram mentions the 12 rāsigal or zodiac signs that correspond to the Tamil months starting with Mesha/Chittirai in mid-April. The Manimekalai alludes to this very same Hindu solar calendar as we know it today Adiyarkunalaar, an early medieval commentator or Urai-asiriyar mentions the twelve months of the Tamil calendar with particular reference to Chittirai i.e. mid-April. There were subsequent inscriptional references in Pagan, Burma dated to the 11th century CE and in Sukhothai, Thailand dated to the 14th century CE to South Indian, often Vaishnavite, courtiers who were tasked with defining the traditional calendar that began in mid-April.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The Tamil New Year follows the "nirayanam" vernal equinox and generally falls on 14 April of the Gregorian year. 14 April marks the first day of the traditional Tamil calendar and is a public holiday in the state of Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka and Mauritius. Tropical vernal equinox fall around 22 March, and by adding 23 degrees of trepidation (oscillation) to it, we get the Hindu sidereal or "Nirayana Mesha Sankranti" (Sun's transition into "nirayana" Aries). Hence, the Tamil calendar begins on the same date in April which is observed by most traditional calendars of the rest of India – Assam, Bengal, Kerala, Odisha, Manipur, Punjab etc. This also coincides with the traditional new year in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Thailand.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The days of week (Kiḻamai) in the Tamil Calendar relate to the celestial bodies in the solar system: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, in that order. The week starts with Sunday.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The Sanskrit month starts a few weeks ahead of the Tamil month, since the Tamil calendar is a solar calendar, while the Sanskrit calendar is a lunisolar calendar.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The Tamil year, in keeping with the old Indic calendar, is divided into six seasons, each of which lasts two months:


title: Tamil calendar

text: The 60-year cycle is common to both North and South Indian traditional calendars, with the same name and sequence of years. Its earliest reference is to be found in Surya Siddhanta, which Varahamihirar (550 CE) believed to be the most accurate of the then current theories of astronomy. However, in the Surya Siddhantic list, the first year was "Vijaya" and not "Prabhava" as currently used. There are some parallels in this sexagenary cycle with the Chinese calendar. The Surya Siddhanta and other Indian classical texts on astronomy had some influence on the Chinese calendar although it merits attention that the sexagenary cycle in China is itself very old.


title: Tamil calendar

text: After the completion of sixty years, the calendar starts a new with the first year. This corresponds to the Hindu "century." The "Vakya" or "Tirukannitha Panchangam" (the traditional Tamil almanac) outlines this sequence. It is related to the position of the planets in the sky with respect to earth. It means that the two major planets Sani/Saturn (which takes 30 years to complete one cycle round the sun) and the Viyaḻan/Jupiter (which takes 12 years to complete one cycle round the Sun) comes to the same position after 60 years.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The months of the Tamil Calendar have great significance and are deeply rooted in the faith of Tamil Hindus. Some months are considered very auspicious, while a few are considered inauspicious as well. Tamil months start and end based on the Sun's shift from one Rāsi to the other, but the names of the months are based on the star on the start of Pournami in that month. The name of the month is sometimes the name of the star itself. (e.g. Chittirai is always the star on the Pournami of the Chittirai month).


title: Tamil calendar

text: Some of the celebrations for each month are listed below. Dates in parentheses are not exact and usually vary by a day or two. Underneath (or beside) the months of the Hindu calendar are their Gregorian counterparts.


title: Tamil calendar

text: The Tamil Calendar is important in the life of Tamil-speaking people and most festivals of Tamil Nadu are based on it. Some festivals include:


title: Eight-ball

text: Eight-ball (also spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes or rarely highs and lows) is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls (a and fifteen ). The object balls include seven solid-colored balls numbered 1 through 7, seven striped balls numbered 9 through 15, and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a , a player is assigned either the group of solid or striped balls once they have legally pocketed a ball from that group. The object of the game is to legally pocket the 8-ball in a "called" pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.


title: Eight-ball

text: The game is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and is often thought of as synonymous with "pool". The game has numerous variations, mostly regional. It is the second most played professional pool game, after nine-ball, and for the last several decades ahead of straight pool.


title: Eight-ball

text: The game of eight-ball arose around 1900 in the United States as a development of pyramid pool, which allows any eight of the fifteen object balls to be pocketed to win. The game arose from two changes made, namely that the 8 ball must be pocketed last to win, and that each player may only pocket half of the other object balls. By 1925, the game was popular enough for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company to introduce purpose-made ball sets with seven , seven , one , and the cue ball, which allowed spectators to more easily see which suit each ball belonged to. (Such colors became standard in the later British-originating variant, blackball.) The rules, as officially codified in the Billiard Congress of America's rule book, were periodically revised in the years following.


title: Eight-ball

text: American-style eight-ball rules are played around the world by professionals, and in many amateur leagues. Nevertheless, the rules for eight-ball may be the most inconsistent of any billiard game, as there are several competing sets of "official" rules.


title: Eight-ball

text: The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), the governing body of pool which has continental and national affiliates around the world, promulgates standardized rules as "Pool Billiards – The Rules of Play". These are used for amateur and professional play.


title: Eight-ball

text: Meanwhile, many amateur leagues – such as the American Poolplayers Association (APA) and its affiliate the Canadian Poolplayers Association (CPA), the Valley National Eight-ball Association (VNEA) and the BCA Pool League (BCAPL) – use their own rulesets which have slight differences from WPA rules and from each other. Millions of individuals play informally, using informal "house rules" which vary not only from area to area but even from venue to venue.


title: Eight-ball

text: The regulation size of the table's playing surface is , though exact dimensions may vary slightly by manufacturer. Some leagues and tournaments using the World Standardized Rules may allow smaller sizes, down to . Early 20th-century models are occasionally also still used. WPA professional competition generally employs regulation tables, while the amateur league championships of various leagues, including BCAPL, VNEA, and APA, use the seven-foot tables in order to fit more of them into the hosting venue.


title: Eight-ball

text: There are seven numbered 1 through 7, seven numbered 9 through 15, an , and a . The balls are usually colored as follows:


title: Eight-ball

text: Special sets designed to be more easily discernible on television substitute pink for the dark purple of the 4 and 12 and light tan for the darker maroon of the 7 and 15 balls, and these alternative-color sets are now also available to consumers.


title: Eight-ball

text: To start the game, the s are placed in a triangular rack. The base of the rack is parallel to the (the short end of the pool table) and positioned so the apex ball of the rack is located on the . The balls in the rack are ideally placed so that they are all in contact with one another; this is accomplished by pressing the balls together toward the apex ball. The order of the balls should be random, with the exceptions of the 8-ball, which must be placed in the center of the rack (i.e., the middle of the third row), and the two back corner balls, one of which must be a stripe and the other a solid. The cue ball is placed anywhere the breaker desires behind the .


title: Eight-ball

text: One person is chosen by some predetermined method (e.g., coin toss, , or win or loss of previous game or match) to shoot first, using the cue ball to the object-ball rack apart. In most leagues it is the breaker's opponent who racks the balls, but in some, players break their own racks. If the breaker fails to make a successful break—usually defined as at least four balls hitting cushions or an object ball being pocketed—then the opponent can opt either to play from the current position or to call for a and either re-break or have the original breaker repeat the break.


title: Eight-ball

text: If the 8 ball is pocketed on the break, then the breaker can choose either to the 8 ball and play from the current position or to re-rack and re-break; but if the cue ball is also pocketed on the break then the opponent is the one who has the choice: either to re-spot the 8 ball and shoot with behind the , accepting the current position, or to re-break or have the breaker re-break.


title: Eight-ball

text: A player (or team) continues to shoot until committing a or failing to legally pocket an object ball (whether or not); thereupon it is the turn of the opposing players. Play alternates in this manner for the remainder of the game. Following a foul, the incoming player has anywhere on the table, unless the foul occurred on the break shot, as noted previously.


title: Eight-ball

text: The table is "open" at the start of the game, meaning that either player may shoot at any ball. It remains open until one player legally pockets any called ball other than the 8 after the break. That player is assigned the "group", or "suit", of the pocketed ball – 1–7 (solids), or 9–15 (stripes) – and the other suit is assigned to the opponent. Balls pocketed on the break, or as the result of a foul while the table is still open, are not used to assign the suits. Once the suits are assigned, they remain fixed throughout the game. If any balls from a player's suit are on the table, the player must hit one of them first on every shot; otherwise a foul is called and the turn ends. After all balls from the suit have been pocketed, the player's target becomes the 8 for the remainder of the game.


title: Eight-ball

text: Once all of a player's (or team's) group of object balls are pocketed, the player attempts to sink the 8 ball. In order to win the game, the player first designates which pocket the 8 ball will be pocketed into and then successfully pockets the 8 ball into that pocket. If the player knocks the 8 ball off the table, the player loses the game. If the player pockets the 8 ball and commits a foul or pockets it into another pocket than the one designated, the player loses the game. Otherwise (i.e., if the 8 ball is neither pocketed nor knocked off the table), the shooter's turn is simply over, even if a foul occurs. In short, a world-standardized rules game of eight-ball, like a game of nine-ball, is not over until the "" is no longer on the table. The rule has been increasingly adopted by amateur leagues.


title: Eight-ball

text: A player wins the game if that player legally pockets the 8 ball into a designated pocket after all of their object balls have been pocketed. Because of this, it is possible for a game to end with only one of the players having shot, which is known as "running the table" or a "denial"; conversely, it's also possible to win a game "without" taking a shot; such a scenario may occur if the opposing player illegally pockets the 8 ball on any shot other than the break (such as sinking the 8 ball in an uncalled pocket, knocking the 8 ball off the table, sinking the 8 ball when a player is not yet on the black ball, or sinking both the 8 ball and the cue ball off a single shot). The rules on what happens when the 8 ball is pocketed off the break vary by the rules in question; please read the Fouls section below for more information.


title: Eight-ball

text: The general rules of pool apply to eight-ball, such as the requirements that the cue ball not be pocketed and that a cushion be hit by any of the balls after the cue ball has struck an object ball. Fouls specific to eight-ball are:


title: Eight-ball

text: The British version of eight-ball, known internationally as blackball, has evolved into a separate game, retaining significant elements of earlier pub versions of the game, with additional influences from English billiards and snooker. It is popular in amateur competition in the UK, Ireland, Australia and some other countries.


title: Eight-ball

text: The game uses unnumbered, solid-colored object balls, typically red and yellow, with one black 8 ball. They are usually or in diameter, the latter being the same size as the balls used in snooker and English billiards. Tables for blackball pool are long, and feature pockets with rounded cushion openings, like snooker tables.


title: Eight-ball

text: The rules of blackball differ from standard eight-ball in numerous ways, including the handling of fouls, which may give the opponent two shots, racking (the 8 ball, not the apex ball, goes on the spot), selection of which group of balls will be shot by which player, handling of balls and s, and many other details.


title: Eight-ball

text: Internationally, the World Pool-Billiard Association and the World Eightball Pool Federation both publish rules and promote events. The two rule sets differ in some details regarding the penalties for fouls.


title: Eight-ball

text: The version of eight-ball played in China uses rules that are essentially the same as standard WPA rules; and the game is played with standard solids-and-stripes balls. However, the tables are constructed similarly to snooker tables, with rounded pocket openings, napped cloth and flat-faced rail cushions. This results in some differences in gameplay approach. The variant arose in the mid-1980s and 1990s as eight-ball gained popularity in China, where snooker was the most popular cue sport at the time. With standard American-style pool tables rare, Chinese players made do with playing eight-ball on small snooker tables. It has since become the most popular cue sport in China, and the major tournaments have some of the largest prize money in pool.


title: Eight-ball

text: The hybrid game eight-ball rotation is a combination of eight-ball and rotation, in which the players must pocket their balls (other than the 8, which remains last) in numerical order. Specifically, the solids player starts by pocketing the 1 ball and ascends to the 7 ball, and the stripes player starts by pocketing the 15 ball and descends to the 9 ball.


title: Eight-ball

text: Backwards eight-ball, also called reverse eight-ball, is a variant in which, instead of shooting the cue ball at an object ball to force the object ball into a pocket, the player strikes the object ball with their cue so it off the cue ball and into a pocket, in a fashion similar to Russian pyramid.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called "parameters") are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal meaning of the term dimension.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: In mathematics, a tuple of numbers can be understood as the Cartesian coordinates of a location in a -dimensional Euclidean space. The set of these -tuples is commonly denoted formula_1 and can be identified to the -dimensional Euclidean space.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: When , this space is called three-dimensional Euclidean space (or simply Euclidean space when the context is clear). It serves as a model of the physical universe (when relativity theory is not considered), in which all known matter exists. While this space remains the most compelling and useful way to model the world as it is experienced, it is only one example of a large variety of spaces in three dimensions called 3-manifolds. In this classical example, when the three values refer to measurements in different directions (coordinates), any three directions can be chosen, provided that vectors in these directions do not all lie in the same 2-space (plane). Furthermore, in this case, these three values can be labeled by any combination of three chosen from the terms "width/breadth", "height/depth", and "length".


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Books XI to XIII of Euclid's Elements dealt with three-dimensional geometry. Book XI develops notions of orthogonality and parallelism of lines and planes, and defines solids including parallelpipeds, pyramids, prisms, spheres, octahedra, icosahedra and dodecahedra. Book XII develops notions of similarity of solids. Book XIII describes the construction of the five regular Platonic solids in a sphere.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: In the 17th century, three-dimensional space was described with Cartesian coordinates, with the advent of analytic geometry developed by René Descartes in his work "La Géométrie" and Pierre de Fermat in the manuscript "Ad locos planos et solidos isagoge" (Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci), which was unpublished during Fermat's lifetime. However, only Fermat's work dealt with three-dimensional space.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: In the 19th century, developments of the geometry of three-dimensional space came with William Rowan Hamilton's development of the quaternions. In fact, it was Hamilton who coined the terms scalar and vector, and they were first defined within his geometric framework for quaternions. Three dimensional space could then be described by quaternions formula_2 which had vanishing scalar component, that is, formula_3. While not explicitly studied by Hamilton, this indirectly introduced notions of basis, here given by the quaternion elements formula_4, as well as the dot product and cross product, which correspond to (the negative of) the scalar part and the vector part of the product of two vector quaternions.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: It wasn't until Josiah Willard Gibbs that these two products were identified in their own right, and the modern notation for the dot and cross product were introduced in his classroom teaching notes, found also in the 1901 textbook "Vector Analysis" written by Edwin Bidwell Wilson based on Gibbs' lectures.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Also during the 19th century came developments in the abstract formalism of vector spaces, with the work of Hermann Grassmann and Giuseppe Peano, the latter of whom first gave the modern definition of vector spaces as an algebraic structure.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: In mathematics, analytic geometry (also called Cartesian geometry) describes every point in three-dimensional space by means of three coordinates. Three coordinate axes are given, each perpendicular to the other two at the origin, the point at which they cross. They are usually labeled , and . Relative to these axes, the position of any point in three-dimensional space is given by an ordered triple of real numbers, each number giving the distance of that point from the origin measured along the given axis, which is equal to the distance of that point from the plane determined by the other two axes.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Other popular methods of describing the location of a point in three-dimensional space include cylindrical coordinates and spherical coordinates, though there are an infinite number of possible methods. For more, see Euclidean space.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Two distinct points always determine a (straight) line. Three distinct points are either collinear or determine a unique plane. On the other hand, four distinct points can either be collinear, coplanar, or determine the entire space.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Two distinct lines can either intersect, be parallel or be skew. Two parallel lines, or two intersecting lines, lie in a unique plane, so skew lines are lines that do not meet and do not lie in a common plane.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Two distinct planes can either meet in a common line or are parallel (i.e., do not meet). Three distinct planes, no pair of which are parallel, can either meet in a common line, meet in a unique common point, or have no point in common. In the last case, the three lines of intersection of each pair of planes are mutually parallel.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: A line can lie in a given plane, intersect that plane in a unique point, or be parallel to the plane. In the last case, there will be lines in the plane that are parallel to the given line.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: A hyperplane is a subspace of one dimension less than the dimension of the full space. The hyperplanes of a three-dimensional space are the two-dimensional subspaces, that is, the planes. In terms of Cartesian coordinates, the points of a hyperplane satisfy a single linear equation, so planes in this 3-space are described by linear equations. A line can be described by a pair of independent linear equations—each representing a plane having this line as a common intersection.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Varignon's theorem states that the midpoints of any quadrilateral in ℝ form a parallelogram, and hence are coplanar.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: A sphere in 3-space (also called a 2-sphere because it is a 2-dimensional object) consists of the set of all points in 3-space at a fixed distance from a central point . The solid enclosed by the sphere is called a ball (or, more precisely a 3-ball).


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Another type of sphere arises from a 4-ball, whose three-dimensional surface is the 3-sphere: points equidistant to the origin of the euclidean space . If a point has coordinates, , then characterizes those points on the unit 3-sphere centered at the origin.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: This 3-sphere is an example of a 3-manifold: a space which is 'looks locally' like 3D space. In precise topological terms, each point of the 3-sphere has a neighborhood which is homeomorphic to an open subset of 3D space.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: In three dimensions, there are nine regular polytopes: the five convex Platonic solids and the four nonconvex Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: A surface generated by revolving a plane curve about a fixed line in its plane as an axis is called a surface of revolution. The plane curve is called the "generatrix" of the surface. A section of the surface, made by intersecting the surface with a plane that is perpendicular (orthogonal) to the axis, is a circle.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Simple examples occur when the generatrix is a line. If the generatrix line intersects the axis line, the surface of revolution is a right circular cone with vertex (apex) the point of intersection. However, if the generatrix and axis are parallel, then the surface of revolution is a circular cylinder.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: In analogy with the conic sections, the set of points whose Cartesian coordinates satisfy the general equation of the second degree, namely,


title: Three-dimensional space

text: The degenerate quadric surfaces are the empty set, a single point, a single line, a single plane, a pair of planes or a quadratic cylinder (a surface consisting of a non-degenerate conic section in a plane and all the lines of through that conic that are normal to ). Elliptic cones are sometimes considered to be degenerate quadric surfaces as well.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Both the hyperboloid of one sheet and the hyperbolic paraboloid are ruled surfaces, meaning that they can be made up from a family of straight lines. In fact, each has two families of generating lines, the members of each family are disjoint and each member one family intersects, with just one exception, every member of the other family. Each family is called a regulus.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Another way of viewing three-dimensional space is found in linear algebra, where the idea of independence is crucial. Space has three dimensions because the length of a box is independent of its width or breadth. In the technical language of linear algebra, space is three-dimensional because every point in space can be described by a linear combination of three independent vectors.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: A vector can be pictured as an arrow. The vector's magnitude is its length, and its direction is the direction the arrow points. A vector in can be represented by an ordered triple of real numbers. These numbers are called the components of the vector.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Without reference to the components of the vectors, the dot product of two non-zero Euclidean vectors and is given by


title: Three-dimensional space

text: The cross product or vector product is a binary operation on two vectors in three-dimensional space and is denoted by the symbol ×. The cross product A × B of the vectors A and B is a vector that is perpendicular to both and therefore normal to the plane containing them. It has many applications in mathematics, physics, and engineering.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: The components of the cross product are formula_13, and can also be written in components, using Einstein summation convention as formula_14 where formula_15 is the Levi-Civita symbol. It has the property that formula_16.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: The space and product form an algebra over a field, which is not commutative nor associative, but is a Lie algebra with the cross product being the Lie bracket. Specifically, the space together with the product, formula_21 is isomorphic to the Lie algebra of three-dimensional rotations, denoted formula_22. In order to satisfy the axioms of a Lie algebra, instead of associativity the cross product satisfies the Jacobi identity. For any three vectors formula_23 and formula_24


title: Three-dimensional space

text: One can in "n" dimensions take the product of vectors to produce a vector perpendicular to all of them. But if the product is limited to non-trivial binary products with vector results, it exists only in three and seven dimensions.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: It can be useful to describe three-dimensional space as a three-dimensional vector space formula_26 over the real numbers. This differs from formula_27 in a subtle way. By definition, there exists a basis formula_28 for formula_26. This corresponds to an isomorphism between formula_26 and formula_27: the construction for the isomorphism is found here. However, there is no 'preferred' or 'canonical basis' for formula_26.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: On the other hand, there is a preferred basis for formula_27, which is due to its description as a Cartesian product of copies of formula_34, that is, formula_35. This allows the definition of canonical projections, formula_36, where formula_37. For example, formula_38. This then allows the definition of the standard basis formula_39 defined by


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Therefore formula_27 can be viewed as the abstract vector space, together with the additional structure of a choice of basis. Conversely, formula_26 can be obtained by starting with formula_27 and 'forgetting' the Cartesian product structure, or equivalently the standard choice of basis.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: As opposed to a general vector space formula_26, the space formula_27 is sometimes referred to as a coordinate space.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Physically, it is conceptually desirable to use the abstract formalism in order to assume as little structure as possible if it is not given by the parameters of a particular problem. For example, in a problem with rotational symmetry, working with the more concrete description of three-dimensional space formula_27 assumes a choice of basis, corresponding to a set of axes. But in rotational symmetry, there is no reason why one set of axes is preferred to say, the same set of axes which has been rotated arbitrarily. Stated another way, a preferred choice of axes breaks the rotational symmetry of physical space.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Computationally, it is necessary to work with the more concrete description formula_27 in order to do concrete computations.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: A more abstract description still is to model physical space as a three-dimensional affine space formula_50 over the real numbers. This is unique up to affine isomorphism. It is sometimes referred to as three-dimensional Euclidean space. Just as the vector space description came from 'forgetting the preferred basis' of formula_27, the affine space description comes from 'forgetting the origin' of the vector space. Euclidean spaces are sometimes called "Euclidean affine spaces" for distinguishing them from Euclidean vector spaces.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: This is physically appealing as it makes the translation invariance of physical space manifest. A preferred origin breaks the translational invariance.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: The above discussion does not involve the dot product. The dot product is an example of an inner product. Physical space can be modelled as a vector space which additionally has the structure of an inner product. The inner product defines notions of length and angle (and therefore in particular the notion of orthogonality). For any inner product, there exist bases under which the inner product agrees with the dot product, but again, there are many different possible bases, none of which are preferred. They differ from one another by a rotation, an element of the group of rotations SO(3).


title: Three-dimensional space

text: In a rectangular coordinate system, the gradient of a (differentiable) function formula_52 is given by


title: Three-dimensional space

text: The divergence of a (differentiable) vector field F = "U" i + "V" j + "W" k, that is, a function formula_55, is equal to the scalar-valued function:


title: Three-dimensional space

text: Expanded in Cartesian coordinates (see Del in cylindrical and spherical coordinates for spherical and cylindrical coordinate representations), the curl ∇ × F is, for F composed of ["F", "F", "F"]:


title: Three-dimensional space

text: where i, j, and k are the unit vectors for the "x"-, "y"-, and "z"-axes, respectively. This expands as follows:


title: Three-dimensional space

text: For some scalar field "f" : "U" ⊆ R → R, the line integral along a piecewise smooth curve "C" ⊂ "U" is defined as


title: Three-dimensional space

text: where r: [a, b] → "C" is an arbitrary bijective parametrization of the curve "C" such that r("a") and r("b") give the endpoints of "C" and formula_63.


title: Three-dimensional space

text: For a vector field F : "U" ⊆ R → R, the line integral along a piecewise smooth curve "C" ⊂ "U", in the direction of r, is defined as