title: Indian Foreign Service

text: Indian Foreign Service (B) is the subordinate/feeder service of the Indian Foreign Service (A). The Indian Foreign Service (B) officers are seen as less prestigious by Indian Foreign Service (A) officers. The direct recruit Indian Foreign Service (A) officers are appointed after qualifying in the Civil Services Examinations, while Indian Foreign Service (B) officers are appointed through all India Combined Graduate level open competitive exams or, the Combined Higher secondary level competitive exams (for stenographers) and can later be inducted into Indian Foreign Service (A) through promotion. The relationship between A and B cadres is marked by territorial grievance and rivalry. A former Indian ambassador, Satyabrata Pal, noted tensions and discrimination between cadres have become worse in the 2010s compared to previous decades.


title: Indian Foreign Service

text: At the level of Grade-I, Indian Foreign Service (B) officers can be inducted into Indian Foreign Service (A) on promotion. The appointment of promotee Indian Foreign Service (B) officers is antedated 8 years before the date of their induction to Indian Foreign Service (A). Antedating puts the promotee officers ahead of the line for postings in front of directly recruited Indian Foreign Service (A) officers who had entered the service earlier. This practice is a common grievance among Indian Foreign Service (A) officers and has caused conflict. In 2013, 6 Indian Foreign Service (A) officers lodged a complaint against their foreign secretary and eight Indian Foreign Service (B) officers with the Central Administrative Tribunal for clogging the promotion pipeline and leading to "de-motivation and demoralisation among direct recruit officers".


title: Indian Foreign Service

text: Indian Foreign Service (B) officers complain of discrimination against them by Indian Foreign Service (A) officers. A Facebook group voicing objections of Indian Foreign Service (B) officers sprung up in 2016 when Indian Foreign Service (B) officer Tajinder Singh, Second Secretary in the Indian embassy in Lisbon died of an apparent suicide. The Facebook group, Indian Foreign Service B-Z, alleged Singh was forced to give up his choice assignment in Washington DC, after serving in a hardship posting in Damascus, for the posting instead in Lisbon. After the setback the group claimed Singh committed suicide due to despair from "discrimination and professional challenges from Indian Foreign Service (A) officers in the ministry".


title: Indian Foreign Service

text: Indian Foreign Service (B) General Cadre have an acrimonious rivalry with the Indian Foreign Service (B) Stenographers Cadre. While Indian Foreign Service (B) General Cadre is considered lower in prestige than the Indian Foreign Service (A), its officers consider the stenographers to be "even lower in the order".


title: Indian Foreign Service

text: The Indian Foreign Service (B) has two sub-cadres, the Indian Foreign Service (B) General Cadre and Stenographers Cadre through separate entrance exams conducted by the Staff Selection Commission. The Stenographers Cadre (selected through matric/higher secondary level exam) provides secretarial assistance, while the Indian Foreign Service (B) General Cadre (mainly selected through graduate-level competitive exams) provides administrative support. In 2009, the path to promotion to Indian Foreign Service (A) was closed for the Stenographers Cadre. The rule change was enacted after pressure by the General Cadre, which remains eligible for induction into Indian Foreign Service (A).


title: Indian Foreign Service

text: The rivalry was brought to the fore when a stenographer was appointed as Indian Ambassador to North Korea in 2012. No Indian Foreign Service officer had wanted the posting in "godforsaken" Pyongyang. Indian Foreign Service(B) officers vociferously protested the appointment due to the perceived "threat to its purported priority in ambassadorial postings" and fears of additional claimants in the future to a "small piece of cake". Three different associations representing Indian Foreign Service (B) officers complained to the Prime Minister’s Office and the external affairs minister, demanding the appointment be cancelled and calling it a "national shame to appoint a stenographer as the envoy to such a strategic country". A senior official in the Ministry of External Affairs speaking to "The Telegraph" rejected the complaint and compared it to a "caste system that the Indian Foreign Service (B) is trying to impose".


title: Locomotive

text: A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight (see CargoSprinter).


title: Locomotive

text: Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, push-pull operation has become common, where the train may have a locomotive (or locomotives) at the front, at the rear, or at each end. Most recently railroads have begun adopting DPU or distributed power. The front may have one or two locomotives followed by a mid-train locomotive that is controlled remotely from the lead unit.


title: Locomotive

text: The word "locomotive" originates from the Latin 'from a place', ablative of 'place', and the Medieval Latin 'causing motion', and is a shortened form of the term "locomotive engine", which was first used in 1814 to distinguish between self-propelled and stationary steam engines.


title: Locomotive

text: Prior to locomotives, the motive force for railways had been generated by various lower-technology methods such as human power, horse power, gravity or stationary engines that drove cable systems. Few such systems are still in existence today. Locomotives may generate their power from fuel (wood, coal, petroleum or natural gas), or they may take power from an outside source of electricity. It is common to classify locomotives by their source of energy. The common ones include:


title: Locomotive

text: A steam locomotive is a locomotive whose primary power source is a steam engine. The most common form of steam locomotive also contains a boiler to generate the steam used by the engine. The water in the boiler is heated by burning combustible material – usually coal, wood, or oil – to produce steam. The steam moves reciprocating pistons which are connected to the locomotive's main wheels, known as the "driving wheels". Both fuel and water supplies are carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself, in bunkers and tanks, (this arrangement is known as a "tank locomotive") or pulled behind the locomotive, in tenders, (this arrangement is known as a "tender locomotive").


title: Locomotive

text: The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick in 1802. It was constructed for the Coalbrookdale ironworks in Shropshire in England though no record of it working there has survived. On 21 February 1804, the first recorded steam-hauled railway journey took place as another of Trevithick's locomotives hauled a train from the Penydarren ironworks, in Merthyr Tydfil, to Abercynon in South Wales. Accompanied by Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success. The design incorporated a number of important innovations including the use of high-pressure steam which reduced the weight of the engine and increased its efficiency.


title: Locomotive

text: In 1812, Matthew Murray's twin-cylinder rack locomotive "Salamanca" first ran on the edge-railed rack-and-pinion Middleton Railway; this is generally regarded as the first commercially successful locomotive. Another well-known early locomotive was "Puffing Billy", built 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley for the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne. This locomotive is the oldest preserved, and is on static display in the Science Museum, London. George Stephenson built "Locomotion No. 1" for the Stockton & Darlington Railway in the north-east of England, which was the first public steam railway in the world. In 1829, his son Robert built "The Rocket" in Newcastle upon Tyne. Rocket was entered into, and won, the Rainhill Trials. This success led to the company emerging as the pre-eminent early builder of steam locomotives used on railways in the UK, US and much of Europe. The Liverpool & Manchester Railway, built by Stephenson, opened a year later making exclusive use of steam power for passenger and goods trains.


title: Locomotive

text: The steam locomotive remained by far the most common type of locomotive until after World War II. Steam locomotives are less efficient than modern diesel and electric locomotives, and a significantly larger workforce is required to operate and service them. British Rail figures showed that the cost of crewing and fuelling a steam locomotive was about two and a half times larger than the cost of supporting an equivalent diesel locomotive, and the daily mileage they could run was lower. Between about 1950 and 1970, the majority of steam locomotives were retired from commercial service and replaced with electric and diesel-electric locomotives. While North America transitioned from steam during the 1950s, and continental Europe by the 1970s, in other parts of the world, the transition happened later. Steam was a familiar technology that used widely-available fuels and in low-wage economies did not suffer as wide a cost disparity. It continued to be used in many countries until the end of the 20th century. By the end of the 20th century, almost the only steam power remaining in regular use around the world was on heritage railways.


title: Locomotive

text: Internal combustion locomotives use an internal combustion engine, connected to the driving wheels by a transmission. Typically they keep the engine running at a near-constant speed whether the locomotive is stationary or moving. Internal combustion locomotives are categorised by their fuel type and sub-categorised by their transmission type.


title: Locomotive

text: Benzene locomotives have an internal combustion engines that use benzene as fuel. Between the late 1890's and 1900's, a number of commercial manufacturers for Benzene Locomotives had been operating. This began with Deutz, that produced an operating system based upon a design prototype for a manganese mine in Giessen. Following, in the early 1900's, they had been sold for multiple mining and Tunnelling operations. Post the 1900's, no wide spread use was necessary or required, their inadequacy had increased with the existence of petrol and diesel locomotives.


title: Locomotive

text: Kerosene locomotives use kerosene as the fuel. They were the world's first internal combustion locomotives, preceding diesel and other oil locomotives by some years. The first known kerosene rail vehicle was a draisine built by Gottlieb Daimler in 1887, but this was not technically a locomotive as it carried a payload.


title: Locomotive

text: A kerosene locomotive was built in 1894 by the Priestman Brothers of Kingston upon Hull for use on Hull docks. This locomotive was built using a 12 hp double-acting marine type engine, running at 300 rpm, mounted on a 4-wheel wagon chassis. It was only able to haul one loaded wagon at a time, due to its low power output, and was not a great success. The first successful kerosene locomotive was "Lachesis" built by Richard Hornsby & Sons and delivered to Woolwich Arsenal railway in 1896. The company built four kerosene locomotives between 1896 and 1903, for use at the Arsenal.


title: Locomotive

text: Petrol locomotives use petrol (gasoline) as their fuel. The first commercially successful petrol locomotive was a petrol-mechanical locomotive built by the Maudslay Motor Company in 1902, for the Deptford Cattle Market in London. It was an 80 hp locomotive using a 3-cylinder vertical petrol engine, with a two speed mechanical gearbox.


title: Locomotive

text: The most common type of petrol locomotive are petrol-mechanical locomotives, which use mechanical transmission in the form of gearboxes (sometimes in conjunction with chain drives) to deliver the power output of the engine to the driving wheels, in the same way as a car. The second petrol-mechanical locomotive was built by F.C. Blake of Kew in January 1903 for the Richmond Main Sewerage Board.


title: Locomotive

text: Petrol-electric locomotives are petrol locomotives which use electric transmission to deliver the power output of the engine to the driving wheels. This avoids the need for gearboxes by converting the rotary mechanical force of the engine into electrical energy by a dynamo, and then powering the wheels by multi-speed electric traction motors. This allows for smoother acceleration, as it avoids the need for gear changes, however, it is more expensive, heavier, and sometimes bulkier than mechanical transmission.


title: Locomotive

text: A notable early petrol-electric locomotive was built in 1913 for the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester and Dubuque Electric Traction Company. It weighed 60 tons, generated 350 hp and drove through a pair of bogies in a Bo-Bo arrangement.


title: Locomotive

text: Diesel locomotives are powered by diesel engines. In the early days of diesel propulsion development, various transmission systems were employed with varying degrees of success, with electric transmission proving to be the most popular.


title: Locomotive

text: A diesel–mechanical locomotive uses mechanical transmission to transfer power to the wheels. This type of transmission is generally limited to low-powered, low speed shunting (switching) locomotives, lightweight multiple units and self-propelled railcars. The earliest diesel locomotives were diesel-mechanical. In 1906, Rudolf Diesel, Adolf Klose and the steam and diesel engine manufacturer Gebrüder Sulzer founded Diesel-Sulzer-Klose GmbH to manufacture diesel-powered locomotives. The Prussian State Railways ordered a diesel locomotive from the company in 1909. The world's first diesel-powered locomotive (a diesel-mechanical locomotive) was operated in the summer of 1912 on the Winterthur–Romanshorn railway in Switzerland, but was not a commercial success. Small numbers of prototype diesel locomotives were produced in a number of countries through the mid-1920s.


title: Locomotive

text: Diesel–electric locomotives are diesel locomotives using electric transmission. The diesel engine drives either an electrical DC generator (generally, less than net for traction), or an electrical AC alternator-rectifier (generally net or more for traction), the output of which provides power to the traction motors that drive the locomotive. There is no mechanical connection between the diesel engine and the wheels. The vast majority of diesel locomotives today are diesel-electric.


title: Locomotive

text: In 1914, Hermann Lemp, a General Electric electrical engineer, developed and patented a reliable direct current electrical control system (subsequent improvements were also patented by Lemp). Lemp's design used a single lever to control both engine and generator in a coordinated fashion, and was the prototype for all diesel–electric locomotive control. In 1917–18, GE produced three experimental diesel–electric locomotives using Lemp's control design. In 1924, a diesel-electric locomotive (E2 original number Юэ 001/Yu-e 001) started operations. It had been designed by a team led by Yury Lomonosov and built 1923–1924 by Maschinenfabrik Esslingen in Germany. It had 5 driving axles (1'E1'). After several test rides, it hauled trains for almost three decades from 1925 to 1954.


title: Locomotive

text: Diesel–hydraulic locomotives are diesel locomotives using hydraulic transmission. In this arrangement, they use one or more torque converters, in combination with gears, with a mechanical final drive to convey the power from the diesel engine to the wheels.


title: Locomotive

text: The main worldwide user of main-line hydraulic transmissions was the Federal Republic of Germany, with designs including the 1950s DB Class V 200, and the 1960 and 1970s DB V 160 family. British Rail introduced a number of diesel hydraulic designs during it 1955 Modernisation Plan, initially license built versions of German designs. In Spain Renfe used high power to weight ratio twin engined German designs to haul high speed trains from the 1960s to 1990s. (see Renfe Classes 340, 350, 352, 353, 354).


title: Locomotive

text: Hydrostatic drive systems have also been applied to rail use, for example shunting locomotives by CMI Group (Belgium). Hydrostatic drives are also used in railway maintenance machines such as tampers and rail grinders.


title: Locomotive

text: A gas turbine locomotive is an internal combustion engine locomotive consisting of a gas turbine. ICE engines require a transmission to power the wheels. The engine must be allowed to continue to run when the locomotive is stopped.


title: Locomotive

text: Gas turbine-mechanical locomotives use a mechanical transmission to deliver the power output of gas turbines to the wheels. A gas turbine locomotive was patented in 1861 by Marc Antoine Francois Mennons (British patent no. 1633). There is no evidence that the locomotive was actually built but the design includes the essential features of gas turbine locomotives, including compressor, combustion chamber, turbine and air pre-heater. In 1952, Renault delivered a prototype four-axle 1150 hp gas-turbine-mechanical locomotive fitted with the Pescara "free turbine" gas- and compressed-air producing system, rather than a co-axial multi-stage compressor integral to the turbine. This model was succeeded by a pair of six-axle 2400 hp locomotives with two turbines and Pescara feeds in 1959. Several similar locomotives were built in USSR by Kharkov Locomotive Works.


title: Locomotive

text: Gas turbine-electric locomotives, use a gas turbine to drive an electrical generator or alternator which produced electric current powers the traction motor which drive the wheels. In 1939 the Swiss Federal Railways ordered Am 4/6, a GTEL with a of maximum engine power from Brown Boveri. It was completed in 1941, and then underwent testing before entering regular service. The Am 4/6 was the first gas turbine – electric locomotive. British Rail 18000 was built by Brown Boveri and delivered in 1949. British Rail 18100 was built by Metropolitan-Vickers and delivered in 1951. A third locomotive, the British Rail GT3, was constructed in 1961. Union Pacific ran a large fleet of turbine-powered freight locomotives starting in the 1950s. These were widely used on long-haul routes, and were cost-effective despite their poor fuel economy due to their use of "leftover" fuels from the petroleum industry. At their height the railroad estimated that they powered about 10% of Union Pacific's freight trains, a much wider use than any other example of this class.


title: Locomotive

text: A gas turbine offers some advantages over a piston engine. There are few moving parts, decreasing the need for lubrication and potentially reducing maintenance costs, and the power-to-weight ratio is much higher. A turbine of a given power output is also physically smaller than an equally powerful piston engine, allowing a locomotive to be very powerful without being inordinately large. However, a turbine's power output and efficiency both drop dramatically with rotational speed, unlike a piston engine, which has a comparatively flat power curve. This makes GTEL systems useful primarily for long-distance high-speed runs. Additional problems with gas turbine-electric locomotives included that they were very noisy.


title: Locomotive

text: An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered only by electricity. Electricity is supplied to moving trains with a (nearly) continuous conductor running along the track that usually takes one of three forms: an overhead line, suspended from poles or towers along the track or from structure or tunnel ceilings; a third rail mounted at track level; or an onboard battery. Both overhead wire and third-rail systems usually use the running rails as the return conductor but some systems use a separate fourth rail for this purpose. The type of electrical power used is either direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC).


title: Locomotive

text: Various collection methods exist: a trolley pole, which is a long flexible pole that engages the line with a wheel or shoe; a bow collector, which is a frame that holds a long collecting rod against the wire; a pantograph, which is a hinged frame that holds the collecting shoes against the wire in a fixed geometry; or a contact shoe, which is a shoe in contact with the third rail. Of the three, the pantograph method is best suited for high-speed operation.


title: Locomotive

text: Electric locomotives almost universally use axle-hung traction motors, with one motor for each powered axle. In this arrangement, one side of the motor housing is supported by plain bearings riding on a ground and polished journal that is integral to the axle. The other side of the housing has a tongue-shaped protuberance that engages a matching slot in the truck (bogie) bolster, its purpose being to act as a torque reaction device, as well as a support. Power transfer from motor to axle is effected by spur gearing, in which a pinion on the motor shaft engages a bull gear on the axle. Both gears are enclosed in a liquid-tight housing containing lubricating oil. The type of service in which the locomotive is used dictates the gear ratio employed. Numerically high ratios are commonly found on freight units, whereas numerically low ratios are typical of passenger engines.


title: Locomotive

text: Electricity is typically generated in large and relatively efficient generating stations, transmitted to the railway network and distributed to the trains. Some electric railways have their own dedicated generating stations and transmission lines but most purchase power from an electric utility. The railway usually provides its own distribution lines, switches and transformers.


title: Locomotive

text: Electric locomotives usually cost 20% less than diesel locomotives, their maintenance costs are 25–35% lower, and cost up to 50% less to run.


title: Locomotive

text: The earliest systems were DC systems. The first electric passenger train was presented by Werner von Siemens at Berlin in 1879. The locomotive was driven by a 2.2 kW, series-wound motor, and the train, consisting of the locomotive and three cars, reached a speed of 13 km/h. During four months, the train carried 90,000 passengers on a 300-metre-long (984 feet) circular track. The electricity (150 V DC) was supplied through a third insulated rail between the tracks. A contact roller was used to collect the electricity. The world's first electric tram line opened in Lichterfelde near Berlin, Germany, in 1881. It was built by Werner von Siemens (see Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway and Berlin Straßenbahn). The Volk's Electric Railway opened in 1883 in Brighton, and is the oldest surviving electric railway. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first in the world in regular service powered from an overhead line. Five years later, in the U.S. electric trolleys were pioneered in 1888 on the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, using equipment designed by Frank J. Sprague.


title: Locomotive

text: The first electrically worked underground line was the City & South London Railway, prompted by a clause in its enabling act prohibiting use of steam power. It opened in 1890, using electric locomotives built by Mather & Platt. Electricity quickly became the power supply of choice for subways, abetted by the Sprague's invention of multiple-unit train control in 1897.


title: Locomotive

text: The first use of electrification on a main line was on a four-mile stretch of the Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) in 1895 connecting the main portion of the B&O to the new line to New York through a series of tunnels around the edges of Baltimore's downtown. Three Bo+Bo units were initially used, at the south end of the electrified section; they coupled onto the locomotive and train and pulled it through the tunnels.


title: Locomotive

text: DC was used on earlier systems. These systems were gradually replaced by AC. Today, almost all main-line railways use AC systems. DC systems are confined mostly to urban transit such as metro systems, light rail and trams, where power requirement is less.


title: Locomotive

text: The first practical AC electric locomotive was designed by Charles Brown, then working for Oerlikon, Zürich. In 1891, Brown had demonstrated long-distance power transmission, using three-phase AC, between a hydro-electric plant at Lauffen am Neckar and Frankfurt am Main West, a distance of 280 km. Using experience he had gained while working for Jean Heilmann on steam-electric locomotive designs, Brown observed that three-phase motors had a higher power-to-weight ratio than DC motors and, because of the absence of a commutator, were simpler to manufacture and maintain. However, they were much larger than the DC motors of the time and could not be mounted in underfloor bogies: they could only be carried within locomotive bodies.


title: Locomotive

text: In 1894, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Kandó developed a new type 3-phase asynchronous electric drive motors and generators for electric locomotives.


title: Locomotive

text: Kandó's early 1894 designs were first applied in a short three-phase AC tramway in Evian-les-Bains (France), which was constructed between 1896 and 1898. In 1918, Kandó invented and developed the rotary phase converter, enabling electric locomotives to use three-phase motors whilst supplied via a single overhead wire, carrying the simple industrial frequency (50 Hz) single phase AC of the high voltage national networks.


title: Locomotive

text: In 1896, Oerlikon installed the first commercial example of the system on the Lugano Tramway. Each 30-tonne locomotive had two motors run by three-phase 750 V 40 Hz fed from double overhead lines. Three-phase motors run at constant speed and provide regenerative braking, and are well suited to steeply graded routes, and the first main-line three-phase locomotives were supplied by Brown (by then in partnership with Walter Boveri) in 1899 on the 40 km Burgdorf—Thun line, Switzerland. The first implementation of industrial frequency single-phase AC supply for locomotives came from Oerlikon in 1901, using the designs of Hans Behn-Eschenburg and Emil Huber-Stockar; installation on the Seebach-Wettingen line of the Swiss Federal Railways was completed in 1904. The 15 kV, 50 Hz , 48 tonne locomotives used transformers and rotary converters to power DC traction motors.


title: Locomotive

text: Italian railways were the first in the world to introduce electric traction for the entire length of a main line rather than just a short stretch. The 106 km Valtellina line was opened on 4 September 1902, designed by Kandó and a team from the Ganz works. The electrical system was three-phase at 3 kV 15 Hz. The voltage was significantly higher than used earlier and it required new designs for electric motors and switching devices. The three-phase two-wire system was used on several railways in Northern Italy and became known as "the Italian system". Kandó was invited in 1905 to undertake the management of Società Italiana Westinghouse and led the development of several Italian electric locomotives.


title: Locomotive

text: A battery-electric locomotive (or battery locomotive) is an electric locomotive powered by on-board batteries; a kind of battery electric vehicle.


title: Locomotive

text: Such locomotives are used where a conventional diesel or electric locomotive would be unsuitable. An example is maintenance trains on electrified lines when the electricity supply is turned off. Another use is in industrial facilities where a combustion-powered locomotive (i.e., steam- or diesel-powered) could cause a safety issue due to the risks of fire, explosion or fumes in a confined space. Battery locomotives are preferred for mines where gas could be ignited by trolley-powered units arcing at the collection shoes, or where electrical resistance could develop in the supply or return circuits, especially at rail joints, and allow dangerous current leakage into the ground.


title: Locomotive

text: The first known electric locomotive was built in 1837 by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen, and it was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). Davidson later built a larger locomotive named "Galvani", exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841. The seven-ton vehicle had two direct-drive reluctance motors, with fixed electromagnets acting on iron bars attached to a wooden cylinder on each axle, and simple commutators. It hauled a load of six tons at four miles per hour (6 kilometers per hour) for a distance of . It was tested on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in September of the following year, but the limited power from batteries prevented its general use.


title: Locomotive

text: Another example was at the Kennecott Copper Mine, Latouche, Alaska, where in 1917 the underground haulage ways were widened to enable working by two battery locomotives of tons. In 1928, Kennecott Copper ordered four 700-series electric locomotives with on-board batteries. These locomotives weighed 85 tons and operated on 750-volt overhead trolley wire with considerable further range whilst running on batteries. The locomotives provided several decades of service using Nickel–iron battery (Edison) technology. The batteries were replaced with lead-acid batteries, and the locomotives were retired shortly afterward. All four locomotives were donated to museums, but one was scrapped. The others can be seen at the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad, Iowa, and at the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista, California. The Toronto Transit Commission previously operated a battery electric locomotive built by Nippon Sharyo in 1968 and retired in 2009.


title: Locomotive

text: In the early 1950s, Dr. Lyle Borst of the University of Utah was given funding by various US railroad line and manufacturers to study the feasibility of an electric-drive locomotive, in which an onboard atomic reactor produced the steam to generate the electricity. At that time, atomic power was not fully understood; Borst believed the major stumbling block was the price of uranium. With the Borst atomic locomotive, the center section would have a 200-ton reactor chamber and steel walls 5 feet thick to prevent releases of radioactivity in case of accidents. He estimated a cost to manufacture atomic locomotives with 7000 h.p. engines at approximately $1,200,000 each. Consequently, trains with onboard nuclear generators were generally deemed unfeasible due to prohibitive costs.


title: Locomotive

text: In 2002, the first 3.6 tonne, 17 kW hydrogen (fuel cell) -powered mining locomotive was demonstrated in Val-d'Or, Quebec. In 2007 the educational mini-hydrail in Kaohsiung, Taiwan went into service. The Railpower GG20B finally is another example of a fuel cell-electric locomotive.


title: Locomotive

text: There are many different types of hybrid or dual-mode locomotives using two or more types of motive power. The most common hybrids are electro-diesel locomotives powered either from an electricity supply or else by an onboard diesel engine. These are used to provide continuous journeys along routes that are only partly electrified. Examples include the EMD FL9 and Bombardier ALP-45DP


title: Locomotive

text: There are three main uses of locomotives in rail transport operations: for hauling passenger trains, freight trains, and for switching (UK English: shunting).


title: Locomotive

text: Freight locomotives are normally designed to deliver high starting tractive effort and high sustained power. This allows them to start and move long, heavy trains, but usually comes at the cost of relatively low maximum speeds. Passenger locomotives usually develop lower starting tractive effort but are able to operate at the high speeds required to maintain passenger schedules. Mixed-traffic locomotives (US English: general purpose or road switcher locomotives) meant for both passenger and freight trains do not develop as much starting tractive effort as a freight locomotive but are able to haul heavier trains than a passenger locomotive.


title: Locomotive

text: Most steam locomotives have reciprocating engines, with pistons coupled to the driving wheels by means of connecting rods, with no intervening gearbox. This means the combination of starting tractive effort and maximum speed is greatly influenced by the diameter of the driving wheels. Steam locomotives intended for freight service generally have smaller diameter driving wheels than passenger locomotives.


title: Locomotive

text: In diesel-electric and electric locomotives the control system between the traction motors and axles adapts the power output to the rails for freight or passenger service. Passenger locomotives may include other features, such as head-end power (also referred to as hotel power or electric train supply) or a steam generator.


title: Locomotive

text: Some locomotives are designed specifically to work steep grade railways, and feature extensive additional braking mechanisms and sometimes rack and pinion. Steam locomotives built for steep rack and pinion railways frequently have the boiler tilted relative to the locomotive frame, so that the boiler remains roughly level on steep grades.


title: Locomotive

text: Locomotives are also used on some High-speed trains: All TGV, many AVE, some Korea Train Express and the ICE 1 and ICE 2 trains all use locomotives, which may also be known as power cars. On the other hand, many high-speed trains such as the Shinkansen network never use locomotives. Instead of locomotives, they use electric multiple units (EMUs) -- passenger cars that also have traction motors. Using power cars allows for a high ride quality and less electrical equipment;


title: Locomotive

text: but EMUs have less axle weight, which reduces maintenance costs, and EMUs also have higher acceleration and higher seating capacity.


title: Locomotive

text: The wheel arrangement of a locomotive describes how many wheels it has; common methods include the AAR wheel arrangement, UIC classification, and Whyte notation systems.


title: Locomotive

text: In the second half of the twentieth century remote control locomotives started to enter service in switching operations, being remotely controlled by an operator outside of the locomotive cab.


title: Locomotive

text: The main benefit is one operator can control the loading of grain, coal, gravel, etc. into the cars. In addition, the same operator can move the train as needed. Thus, the locomotive is loaded or unloaded in about a third of the time.


title: Patrick Muldoon

text: Muldoon was born in San Pedro, California, the son of Deanna, a homemaker, and William Patrick Muldoon II, a personal injury lawyer. He is of Irish descent on his father's side and of Croatian descent on his mother's side. He attended Loyola High School, a Jesuit school. Muldoon graduated in 1991 from the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and played tight end on the USC Trojans football team.


title: Patrick Muldoon

text: Muldoon was the first actor to play the role of Austin Reed on "Days of Our Lives", from 1992 to 1995 and again from September 2011 to July 2012. Prior to that, he landed a role on the popular teen television series "Saved by the Bell" in 1991.


title: Patrick Muldoon

text: During the '90s, Muldoon became the only actor ever to hold an exclusive development deal with Spelling Entertainment. Muldoon co-produced programming with Spelling Television's vice president Tony Shepherd, and their television development began with the USA Petite Model Show created by actress-model Ann Lauren. The show was filmed on-location at Caesar's Palace Las Vegas on the renowned Colosseum Circus Maximus Showroom stage, in The Forum Shops and sponsored by Cartier. The televised special was co-hosted by Patrick Muldoon and Ann Lauren with special guest co-star Audrey Landers of Dallas and broadcast on WWOR and WGN Superstations distributed by Spelling Television Worldvision.


title: Patrick Muldoon

text: Muldoon's roles include playing the popular villain Richard Hart on the primetime soap opera "Melrose Place" from 1995 to 1996.  He starred in "Black Cat Run," which also marked the debut of director DJ Caruso ("Disturbia", "I am Number Four") with Frank Darabont. He also played Edmund in the Patsy Rodenburg production of "King Lear". He played Zander Barcalow in the Paul Verhoeven-directed "Starship Troopers". He has starred in many popular television movies and has been a regular in many films for the Lifetime & Hallmark channels.


title: Patrick Muldoon

text: In the past decade, he has also become a prolific film producer. In 2015, he produced and starred in "Badge of Honor" and in 2020, he appeared in "Arkansas" and "The Comeback Trail".


title: Herogasm

text: Herogasm is a six-issue comic book limited series by Garth Ennis, John McCrea and Keith Burns. Originally published as a spin-off of "The Boys", set between issues #30 and #31, "Herogasm" was collected in trade paperback in November 2009 as the fifth volume of "The Boys", as The Boys: Herogasm.


title: Herogasm

text: "Herogasm" was adapted as the sixth episode of the third season of the Amazon Prime Video streaming television adaptation of "The Boys", with Jensen Ackles portraying Soldier Boy, a character introduced in "Herogasm".


title: Herogasm

text: In February 2009, Dynamite announced the first spin-off mini-series of "The Boys" in "Herogasm", with art from John McCrea, who "The Boys" creator Garth Ennis had worked with numerous times before, and Keith Burns, a friend of McCrea's of whom he has said: "Keith's strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa." The series is "The Boys" version of the big 'event' storylines but, according to Ennis "while we're having a pop at the notion of mass crossovers within a shared universe, we're not picking on 'Crisis' or 'Secret Wars' or 'Countdown' or whatever in particular." The idea for the mini-series came about because the first part of the story does not involve the team and focuses on the superheroes, but will affect the main series:


title: Herogasm

text: The comic centers on the Boys as they infiltrate "Herogasm", an annual party for Vought-sponsored superheroes to allow them vacations.


title: Herogasm

text: In January 2021, Eric Kripke, the showrunner of the Amazon Prime Video streaming television adaptation of "The Boys", confirmed that "Herogasm" would be adapted as the sixth episode of the series' third season, featuring Jensen Ackles portraying Soldier Boy, a character introduced in "Herogasm". Unlike the source material, in which Soldier Boy is depicted as a superhero who has yearly sex with Homelander in an attempt to gain membership in The Seven, Soldier Boy was depicted as the "Homelander before Homelander", a superhero from World War II brought out of retirement. In addition, the "Herogasm" event was held by Soldier Boy's teammates the TNT Twins at their house.


title: Herogasm

text: "Herogasm" opened to largely positive reviews by critics. In 2017, "CBR" ranked "Herogasm" as the comic book showing the fourth-most nudity in the 2000s, praising its depiction of "bedroom proclivities that rival their inhuman abilities." Will Morgan of "The Slings & Arrows" praised the "overall tone [a]s gleeful, as Ennis strives for ever more depraved and ludicrous situations for the series’ colour-splashed supporting cast to get into, taking irreverent jabs at the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, several of Batman's Rogue's Gallery, and scores more. Artist John McCrea's talent for amiable goonery has seldom been deployed to better effect; even the most horrible and heinous acts are presented with a chirpy patina which offsets the darker scenes masterfully." "Screen Rant" lauded the miniseries' "controversial" aspects, describing it as "a shocking storyline, even by the standards of "The Boys" monthly comic" but praising the decision to address "the idea of men being sexually assaulted", specifically a scene in which Hughie Campbell is assaulted by Black Noir.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: "You Raise Me Up" is a song originally composed by the Norwegian-Irish duo Secret Garden. The music was written by Secret Garden's Rolf Løvland, and the lyrics by Brendan Graham. After the song was performed early in 2002 by the Secret Garden and their invited lead singer, Brian Kennedy, the song only became a minor UK hit. The song has been recorded by more than a hundred other artists including American songwriter Josh Groban in 2003 and Irish boy band Westlife in 2005 whose versions were hits in their countries. Welsh singer Aled Jones and all-female Irish ensemble Celtic Woman have also recorded successful covers.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: Løvland composed an instrumental piece in 2002 and titled it "Silent Story". He later approached Irish novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write the lyrics to his melody, after reading Graham's novels. The song was performed for the very first time at the funeral of Løvland's mother. The original designated vocalist was Johnny Logan, who recorded a demo with an orchestra. However, the vocalist was changed due to a desire to distance the album from the Eurovision Song Contest, in which all three men were known for their success: Logan had won twice as a performer and twice as a composer; Løvland had won once as a performer and twice as a composer: and Graham had won twice as a composer.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: In 2002, it was released on the Secret Garden album "Once in a Red Moon", with the vocals sung by Irish singer Brian Kennedy, and sold well in both Ireland and Norway. Originally, Brian Kennedy was supposed to follow Secret Garden on their Asian tour in 2002, but Curb records couldn't come to an agreement with Universal to release Brian, and he reluctantly could not attend the tour. He was replaced by Norwegian singer Jan Werner Danielsen, who also later recorded the song together with Secret Garden. A demo version of this recording was released in 2010, on Danielsen's posthumous compilation album "One More Time - The Very Best Of", which included several previously unpublished recordings.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: In April 2018 Icelandic composer Jóhann Helgason claimed the song infringed the copyright of his 1977 work "Söknuður," meaning "Into the light" sung by Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, stating that Løvland would have


title: You Raise Me Up

text: heard the song while living in Iceland. The Performing Rights Society of Iceland analyzed both songs and found a 97% similarity between them, stating that the songs are "musically identical" except for just two notes. It was disclosed at a press conference that Groban had "Söknuður" played for him in 2007, who reacted in an 'alarmed' fashion. He then admitted that the two songs were similar and he didn't know where the inspiration came from. Later, singer Edgar Smári performed "Söknuður" in English to outline the similarities.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: In April 2019 the United States District Court of the Central District of California granted summary judgment in favor of Løvland and Graham, "finding that it is not substantially similar to Icelandic song Soknudur as a matter of law, and excluding plaintiff's expert musicologist's reports as unreliable, unhelpful, and inadmissible." The court acknowledged that the songs have similarities, but accepted the argument that those similar parts were not necessarily Helgason's own work in the first place; substantially the same material is in Danny Boy and other old public-domain songs.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: Although the original version did not chart internationally, the song has now been covered more than 125 times. Irish singer Daniel O'Donnell's version debuted at its peak position, number 22, in the UK Singles Chart on the week of 7–13 December 2003. It fell to number 35 the following week. It fell off the top 100 three weeks afterwards. Christian group Selah's version, included in their 2004 album "Hiding Place", peaked number two on "Billboard"'s Hot Christian Songs and Christian Airplay on the week ending 25 June 2004. This recording was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2005 Dove Awards and appeared on "WOW Hits 2005".


title: You Raise Me Up

text: The Josh Groban peaked 73 in the "Billboard" Hot 100 and No. 1 on the US Adult Contemporary chart, Westlife No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, and Dutch "Popstars" winner Wesley Klein No. 4 in the Netherlands. The song has also found success as part of a three-song EP entitled "George Best - A Tribute" by Peter Corry and the song's original vocalist Brian Kennedy, which reached No. 4 in the UK.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: In 2004, the song was played more than 500,000 times on American radio. In late 2005, there were over 80 versions available in US alone, and it has been nominated for Gospel Music Awards four times, including "Song of the Year."


title: You Raise Me Up

text: On 21 September 2006, "You Raise Me Up" became the first song to have sold over 76,000 copies of the score on the popular sheet music website musicnotes.com.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: In 2003, David Foster decided to produce the song after being introduced to it by Frank Petrone of peermusic, the song's publisher. He chose the up-and-coming Josh Groban to record the song, which was accompanied by the tenor Craig Von Vennik of the Establishment. Groban's version made it to No. 1 on the "Billboard" adult contemporary chart in early 2004 and remained there for six weeks. This version also peaked at No. 73 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, his first single to do so, and was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: Groban performed the song at Super Bowl XXXVIII, in a special NASA commemoration for the crew of the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster. A special surprise performance by Groban, for Oprah Winfrey's 50th birthday, also gave "You Raise Me Up" international prominence. On 25 April 2007, Groban also performed it at the first Idol Gives Back Concert, along with the African Children's Choir. This version was released as a single and peaked at No. 76 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. He performed this version with the African Children's Choir again on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on 10 August 2007.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: On 26 May 2007, Josh Groban appeared on BBC's talent show "Any Dream Will Do" to select one of the remaining contestants (or "Josephs") to perform the song with him. He chose show favourite and eventual winner Lee Mead, whilst the other four contestants (Lewis Bradley, Craig Chalmers, Ben Ellis, and Keith Jack) performed as backing singers. Following this, the solo version of "You Raise Me Up" charted in the UK at No. 74, making it his first chart entry there.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: "You Raise Me Up" was released as the lead single from Westlife's sixth studio album "Face to Face". This version is one of the most successful covers of the song, peaking at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, the only version to do so. This was the band's 13th number-one single as well as the first single to be released following Brian McFadden's departure from the group. It debuted with 97,288 combined physical and download sales in the UK alone. The single has sold 600,000 copies in the UK so far. In South Korea, it entered the Official South Korean Year-end Downloads Singles Chart in 2010 with 130,759 sales. Later, it stayed in the top 75 of the Official International Karaoke Charts since the inception of the charts in December 2010 up to its recent chart released.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: Westlife performed this song with Secret Garden at the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize concert. On 11 December 2009, they performed it again at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize concert celebrating US President Barack Obama. The backing track is re-used in the Spanish version of this song, "Por Ti Sere", performed by Il Divo in their Siempre album. When Louis Walsh suggested the band to record it, Filan, Egan, Byrne, and Feehily were against it saying it was a church song, and would not be a success. They also said they did not want to record it. However, they have since claimed in 2011, six years after the single's release, that the song changed their careers and were glad they recorded it. It was composed in the traditional verse–chorus form in E♭ major, with Filan and Feehily's vocal ranging from the chords of B♭ to B♭.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: Westlife's official music video for "You Raise Me Up" was directed by Alex Hemming. It is currently the most-played version on YouTube with over 100 million views as of July 2021. The 4K version of the music video has been released on Westlife' official YouTube channel. It is also their most-streamed single of all time with 19.7 million listens in the United Kingdom as of January 2019. It is the band's third best selling single of all-time on both paid-for and combined sales categories. While it is their eighth most streamed song of all time from their home country, the Republic of Ireland, as of 2 April 2019. It is the second best-selling single of 2005 in Ireland.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: After the band broke up in 2012, the single was performed solo in many live instances by three of band members Shane Filan, Kian Egan and Mark Feehily. In 2018, the single was re-recorded by its member Shane Filan for his solo album "Love Always - Deluxe Version". On 12 May 2018, the song was performed on South Korean music programme "Immortal Songs 2" by Sohyang. Filan was the featured 'Legend' and judged the participants.


title: You Raise Me Up

text: On the second season of "Popstars" in the Netherlands, "You Raise Me Up" was recorded by each of the four finalists - Kim Stolker, Kristel Roulaux, Joshua Newton and Wesley Klein. When Klein won, his version was released as a single in the Netherlands under the mononym Wesley, peaking at No. 4 on the Dutch Top 40 and staying in the charts for eleven weeks, making it the first version of the song to reach the top 10 in the Netherlands. The song was subsequently released as the final track on his debut album "Vandaag en morgen" (meaning "Today and Tomorrow" in Dutch).


title: Belarusians

text: Belarusians or Belarusans (, ), also known formerly as Byelorussians (from the Byelorussian SSR), White Ruthenians (from White Ruthenia), BaltoRuthenians, Belarussians or Belorusians, are an East Slavic ethnic group native to modern-day Belarus and the immediate region. Over 9.5 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 8 million Belarusians reside in Belarus, with the United States and Russia being home to more than half a million Belarusians each.


title: Belarusians

text: Belarusians are an East Slavic ethnic group, who constitute the majority of Belarus' population. Belarusian minority populations live in countries neighboring Belarus: Ukraine, Poland (especially in the Podlaskie Voivodeship), the Russian Federation and Lithuania. At the beginning of the 20th century, Belarusians constituted a minority in the regions around the city of Smolensk in Russia.


title: Belarusians

text: Significant numbers of Belarusians emigrated to the United States, Brazil and Canada in the early 20th century. During Soviet times (1917–1991), many Belarusians were deported or migrated to various regions of the USSR, including Siberia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.


title: Belarusians

text: Since the 1991 breakup of the USSR, several hundred thousands of Belarusians have emigrated to the Baltic states, the United States, Canada, Russia, and EU countries.


title: Belarusians

text: The two official languages in Belarus are Belarusian and Russian. Russian language was added to the constitution after 1995 Belarusian referendum, together with reinstalment of redesigned flag, coat of arms and anthem of BSSR instead of national ones. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly stated that the referendum violated international standards. Members of the opposition claimed that the organisation of the referendum involved several serious violations of legislation, including the constitution.


title: Belarusians

text: Some researchers write that between and 2000 B.C., Finno-Ugrics settled in some places within Daugava and Dnieper regions.


title: Belarusians

text: Since at least , the territory of present-day Belarus was inhabited by Balts as a result of the Indo-European migrations. Modern Belarusian ethnicity is related to the East Slavic tribes of Dregoviches, Krivichs, Radimichs, Western Baltic tribe of Yotvingians and Eastern Baltic Dniepr Balts. Proto-Slavic dialect of Balto-Slavic linguistic continuum became dominant in the region during expansion of Slavs in 6th and 8th century during a series of events known in European history as Migration Period.


title: Belarusians

text: Some Belarusians, such as political activist , publicist Alexei Dzermant, geneticist and publicist , emphasize that Belarusians are Slavicized Balts. The Lithuanian professor Zigmas Zinkevičius states that Belarusians as a nation formed on a Baltic, i.e. Lithuanian, basis.


title: Belarusians

text: Belarusians began to emerge as a nationality during the 13th and 14th centuries in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania mostly on the lands of the upper basins of Neman River, Dnieper River, and the Western Dvina River. The Belarusian people trace their distinct culture to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, earlier Kievan Rus' and the Principality of Polotsk.


title: Belarusians

text: In the 13th–18th centuries, Belarusians were known as Ruthenians and spoke the Ruthenian language, while also being called Litvins as they lived within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. By the end of the 16th century, some of the Russian Orthodox inhabitants of the Vitebsk and Mogilev regions, then within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, started calling themselves Belarusians () after the Unions of Lublin and Brest.


title: Belarusians

text: Casimir's Code of 1468, all three editions of Statutes of Lithuania (1529, 1566, and 1588) and Lithuanian Metrica (14th–17th centuries) were written in the Ruthenian language. Nevertheless, the Grand Duchy had numerous official written languages besides Ruthenian, which were Latin, German and Polish. In 1614, the Third Statute's Polish translation superseded the Ruthenian version. Nevertheless, from the 1630s it is started to be replaced by the Polish language, as a result of the Polish high culture acquiring increasing prestige in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1697, Ruthenian was removed as one of the Grand Duchy's official languages. By the 17th century, Muscovites began encouraging the use of the word Belarusian and viewed the Belarusians as Russians and their language as a Russian dialect. This was done to legitimize Russian attempts of conquering the eastern lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth under the pretense of unifying all Russian lands. During three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772, 1793 and 1795) most of the territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were annexed by the Russian Empire.


title: Belarusians

text: Following the destruction of Poland–Lithuania with the Third Partition in 1795, Empress Catherine of Russia created the Belarusian Governorate from the and Mogilev Governorates. However, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia banned the use of the word Belarus in 1839, replacing it with the designation Northwestern Krai. Due to the ban, various different names were used for naming the inhabitants of those territories. It was part of the Pale of Settlement, which was the region where Jews were allowed permanent residency.


title: Belarusians

text: During World War I and the fall of Russian Empire, a short-lived Belarusian Democratic Republic was declared in March 1918. Thereafter, modern Belarus' territory was split between the Second Polish Republic and Soviet Russia during the Peace of Riga in 1921. The latter created the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was reunited with Western Belarus during World War 2 and lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was ended by the Belovezh Accords in 1991. The modern Republic of Belarus exists since then.


title: Belarusians

text: The term White Rus () was first mentioned in the 13th century's latter half. Initially, it only referred to Polotskian Rus' at the 15th century's end. The word White could be connected to freedom or the color of the national costumes and the impact of the Balts ( means white). However, some Belarusians consider "White Russian" insulting, due to its association with the White movement during the Russian Civil War.


title: Belarusians

text: Belarusian cuisine shares the same roots as the cuisines of other Eastern and Northern European countries.


title: The Fame Monster

text: The Fame Monster is a reissue of American singer Lady Gaga's debut studio album, "The Fame" (2008), and was released on November 18, 2009, through Interscope Records. Initially planned solely as a deluxe edition reissue of "The Fame", Interscope later decided to release the eight new songs as a standalone EP in some territories. The decision was also because Gaga believed the re-release was too expensive and that the albums were conceptually different, describing them as yin and yang. The deluxe edition is a double album featuring the eight new songs on the first disc and "The Fame" on the second disc. A super deluxe edition was released on December 15, 2009, holding additional merchandise, including a lock from Gaga's wig.


title: The Fame Monster

text: An electropop record, "The Fame Monster" has influences of disco, glam rock, and synthpop music of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as industrial and gothic music. The album was also inspired by fashion shows and runways. According to Gaga, the album deals with the darker side of fame, with its theme lyrically expressed through a monster metaphor. The cover artwork, shot by Hedi Slimane, has a Gothic theme and was declined for release by her record company, but Gaga persuaded them.


title: The Fame Monster

text: "The Fame Monster" received generally positive reviews from music critics. The album charted as "The Fame" in some countries, and topped the charts in Australia, Belgium, Finland, New Zealand, and Poland. In the United States, the EP reached number five on the "Billboard" 200 and topped the Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The album has won multiple awards since its release. It was nominated in a total of six categories at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, including Gaga's second consecutive Album of the Year nomination. It won three, including Best Pop Vocal Album.


title: The Fame Monster

text: "Bad Romance", the album's lead single, was a commercial success, topping the charts in more than twenty countries and reaching number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the US. The next two singles, "Telephone" and "Alejandro", reached the top ten in multiple countries worldwide. "Dance in the Dark" was released as a single only in select territories, achieving moderate chart success. To promote the album, Gaga embarked on The Monster Ball Tour (2009–2011), which became the highest-grossing tour in history by a debut headlining artist.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Lady Gaga released her debut studio album, "The Fame", in 2008. Consisting of electropop and synthpop songs, the album offered a commentary on fame, duality between celebrity and fan base, as well as a wealthy person's life. After the worldwide success of "The Fame", the idea of a re-release arose. However, Gaga felt that re-releases were a disservice to music artists because "it's artists sneaking singles onto an already finished piece of work in an effort to keep the album afloat." Her label, Interscope Records, initially wanted three songs for the project, titled as "The Fame Monster". Gaga had already composed a song, "Monster", by March 2009. She sought for a darker and edgier concept than she had previously done, and cited her love of horror films and "the decay of the celebrity and the way that fame is a monster in society" as creative inspirations for "The Fame Monster". Gaga explained in an interview with "Daily Star":


title: The Fame Monster

text: I have an obsession with death and sex. Those two things are also the nexus of horror films, which I've been obsessing over lately. I’ve been watching horror movies and 1950s science fiction movies. My re-release is called "The Fame Monster" so I've just been sort of bulimically eating and regurgitating monster movies and all things scary. I've just been noticing a resurgence of this idea of monster, of fantasy, but in a very real way. If you notice in those films, there's always a juxtaposition of sex with death.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Unlike her debut album, the new record was inspired by the singer's personal experiences. The early musical direction was also shaped by Gaga's touring experiences with The Fame Ball Tour, during which she allegedly encountered "several monsters" that encapsulated her biggest fears. These fears were divided into various monster metaphors, such as the "Fear of Sex Monster", "Fear of Love Monster", "Fear of Alcohol Monster", and so forth. "I spent a lot of nights in Eastern Europe," the singer said. "And this album is a pop experimentation with industrial/Goth beats, 90's dance melodies, an obsession with the lyrical genius of 80's melancholic pop, and the runway". In an interview with MTV News, Gaga said that "The Fame" and "The Fame Monster" were like yin and yang because of their contrasting styles and concepts.


title: The Fame Monster

text: The final cut of "The Fame Monster" contains eight tracks on the standard edition. The record showcases Gaga's taste for pastiche, drawing on "Seventies arena glam, perky ABBA disco, and sugary throwbacks like Stacey Q", according to "Rolling Stone". Neil McCormick from "The Daily Telegraph" felt that while not as thematically unified as its predecessor, "The Fame Monster" had engaging songs composed by virtue of Gaga's "vivacious energy, bold melodies and almost comically relentless sensationalism". The lyrics contain zombie metaphors in songs like "Monster" ("He ate my heart..."), the Cossack like music in "Teeth" ("Take a bite of my bad-girl meat...") and "Dance in the Dark" ("Silicone, saline, poison, inject me..."). The last of those lyrics also refer to famous people who met a tragic end: Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Sylvia Plath, Princess Diana, Liberace and JonBenét Ramsey. Recording sessions were held in Los Angeles, London, Osaka, and Amsterdam. Four of the songs were primarily produced by RedOne, with additional productions on the other songs by Ron Fair, Fernando Garibay, Tal Herzberg, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, Teddy Riley and Space Cowboy. Gaga was the co-producer on all the tracks.


title: The Fame Monster

text: "The Fame Monster" begins with the track "Bad Romance", which Simon Price from "The Independent" felt set the tone for the album. He added that the track contained a "dominant atmosphere and a Gothic aesthetic, from the monochrome cover artwork of the single version to the crucifix logo". For Paul Lester from BBC, the refrain of "Bad Romance" has sonic similarities to songs by Boney M, and the composition is reminiscent of Depeche Mode's fifth studio album, "Black Celebration" (1986). A "catchy" chorus and a club-like beat is the crux of the song, talking about how love hurts in both good and bad ways. There is a sing-along hook—"Rah, rah, ah, ah, ah/Roma, roma ma/Gaga, ooh la la"—present in between the verses. Second track, "Alejandro", incorporates elements from music of ABBA and Ace of Base, with the lyrics talking about Gaga fending off a harem of Latino men. The lyrics were also interpreted as bidding farewell to a lover, accompanied by RedOne's production. "Monster" consists of stuttering synths and instrumentation from heavy drums. The intro contains a double four-square beat and Auto-Tune on Gaga's vocals as she sings the lyrics with a Don Juan womanizer metaphor.


title: The Fame Monster

text: The fourth track is the ballad "Speechless", a 1970s rock-inspired number that discusses abusive relationships with lyrics like "I can't believe how you slurred at me with your half-wired broken jaw". It consists of vocal harmonies and guitar riffs, which according to "PopMatters", is comparable to the work of Freddie Mercury and Queen. Gaga's inspiration for the track was her father's heart condition. She recalls how her father used to call after having few drinks, but the singer was speechless in her response, fearing for his death. Produced by Ron Fair, "Speechless" was recorded with all live instruments such as drums, guitars, bass and piano played by Gaga. The album's fifth track, "Dance in the Dark", talks about a girl who likes to have sex with the lights off as she is ashamed of her body. Gaga has "resolute" vocals in the song, and the synths ultimately lead to the chorus where she belts, "Baby loves to Dance in the Dark, 'Cause when he's looking she falls apart".


title: The Fame Monster

text: "Telephone" was originally written by Gaga for singer Britney Spears's sixth studio album, "Circus" (2008), but Spears' label rejected it. Gaga later recorded it as a collaboration with Beyoncé for "The Fame Monster". The song talks about the singer preferring the dance floor rather than answering her lover's call, with the verses sung in a rapid-fire way, accompanied by double beats. Gaga explained that the song deals with her fear of suffocation, "fear [of] never being able to enjoy myself. 'Cause I love my work so much, I find it really hard to go out and have a good time." In "So Happy I Could Die", Gaga presents an ode to sexual feeling and actions, stating, "I love that lavender blonde, The way she moves the way she walks, I touch myself, can't get enough." The object of affection in the track becomes Gaga herself as she sings about drinking, dancing, observing, and touching herself, in a sedated, Auto-Tuned voice. "The Fame Monster" ends with the song "Teeth", which has a gospel style composition.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Gaga confirmed that the eight new songs would be released in North America as a standalone extended play (EP). She felt that "The Fame Monster" should be treated as her sophomore release and did not want to "add, nor take away any songs from this EP. It is a complete conceptual and musical body of work that can stand on its own two feet". The EP was released in North America on November 23, 2009. The deluxe edition double album featuring the eight new songs on the first disc and "The Fame" on the second disc—was launched the same day. The limited edition, which included a lock of her wig, followed three weeks later. Interscope had planned to release only a double-disc deluxe edition of "The Fame", but Gaga fought with the record label arguing that her fans who already purchased "The Fame" should be able to purchase only the new tracks. So in countries like the United States, "The Fame Monster" was also released as a separate standard EP. On May 3, 2010, "The Fame Monster" Limited Edition USB flash drive was released. It included the explicit version of the tracks, as well as nine remixes, eight music videos, a digital booklet, single cover artworks, and a photo gallery.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Two covers were created for "The Fame Monster", both of which were shot by French photographer Hedi Slimane. The first cover artwork features Gaga sporting a blond wig and a sleek, angular black coat, the collar of which covers the lower half of her face. The angular obscuring of her face was a reference to the similar cover art for "The Fame", but was relegated as "sleek" by Andrew Unterberger from "Billboard". He added that "there's a danger in Gaga's eyes this time out, and the feeling of greater depth in its austerity: A star, but one with a lot to say." The second cover artwork is reminiscent of Gaga's appearance as "Stefani" before she became famous and developed her image. In this photo, Gaga is draped in thick brown hair similar in style and color to her natural hair with heavy, streamy black eyeliner running down her face to represent tears. In interviews, Gaga explained that the two album covers are part of the "yin and yang" concept depicting who she was before and after achieving fame. A vinyl picture disc edition of The Fame Monster features the "blonde" cover on the A side and "brunette" cover on the B side.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Gaga initially had a dispute with her record label over the artwork; Interscope found the brunette cover to be too dark and gothic for a mainstream release. However, Gaga convinced them by explaining that both would be suitable with the yin and yang concept of the album. The font used on the cover is the sans-serif letterform used by Christian Dior in their campaigns.


title: The Fame Monster

text: The album's lead single, "Bad Romance", was released for digital download on October 23, 2009. The song topped numerous record charts, as well as reaching a peak of number two in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, and Switzerland, ultimately selling 12 million copies worldwide. The accompanying music video, featuring Gaga inside a surreal white bathhouse, garnered acclaim from critics, who praised the risqué and symbolic nature of the plot, as well as its artistic direction and vivid imagery. In 2011, the music video was voted the best video of the 2000s (decade) by readers of "Billboard".


title: The Fame Monster

text: "Telephone" was released as the album's second single on January 26, 2010. The track reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Gaga's second consecutive UK chart topper and fourth in total. It peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100, making it her sixth consecutive single to reach the top ten. "Telephone" also reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, becoming Gaga's sixth consecutive number-one on the chart, tying with Mariah Carey for most number-ones since the chart's launch in 1992. The music video is a continuation of the clip for Gaga's previous single, "Paparazzi" (2010), with the plot showing Beyoncé bailing Gaga from jail and together going on a murder spree.


title: The Fame Monster

text: "Dance in the Dark" was intended by Gaga's record label to be the third single. However, Gaga chose "Alejandro" after a confrontation with her label and it was released on April 20, 2010. "Alejandro" reached the top five of the Australian and Canadian charts, as well as the top ten of the charts of other nations. In the United States, it reached number five, becoming her seventh consecutive top ten single on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Dance in the Dark" was then released as the fourth and final single from "The Fame Monster" in France and Russia in the second half of 2010. It had minor chart placements, reaching number 24 in Australia and number 30 on the French Digital Charts.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Promotion for "The Fame Monster" began with a performance on "Saturday Night Live", which contained segments of a piano version of "Bad Romance". Gaga also appeared on various talk shows, such as "It's On with Alexa Chung" and Germany's "Wetten, dass..?". On November 16, 2009, Gaga performed "Speechless" at Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's 30th Anniversary celebrations. She collaborated with artist Francesco Vezzolli and members of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet Academy. Same day she performed "Bad Romance" on CW's "Gossip Girl", during an episode titled "The Last Days of Disco Stick". Gaga also performed "Bad Romance" at the 2009 American Music Awards, "The Jay Leno Show", "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "The X Factor UK". She then performed "Speechless" at the "Royal Variety Performance".


title: The Fame Monster

text: Gaga appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in January 2010, and performed a medley of "Monster", "Bad Romance", and "Speechless". At the 52nd Grammy Awards, the singer opened the show by performing a medley of "Poker Face", "Speechless", and "Your Song" with Elton John. At the 2010 Brit Awards, Gaga sang a ballad version of "Telephone" and then "Dance in the Dark", in memory of designer Alexander McQueen. In March 2010, "Bad Romance" and "Monster" were added as downloadable content for the "Rock Band" video game series, along with "Just Dance" and "Poker Face" from "The Fame". Gaga appeared on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", and sang "Brown Eyes" (from "The Fame") and "Telephone". The next month, she held a mini-concert in Japan for MAC Cosmetics, collaborating with Canadian performance artist, Terence Koh. Billed as "GagaKoh", the concert took place on a rotating stage where Koh had created a statue of a naked woman with rabbit ears. The singer performed "Speechless", "Alejandro", and "Bad Romance" in the event.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Gaga had initially planned to accompany rapper Kanye West on concert tour . After his controversy at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with Taylor Swift, West announced that he was taking a break from music. All the Fame Kills tour dates were immediately cancelled and Gaga confirmed that she was going on tour alone to promote "The Fame Monster". Described by Gaga as "the first-ever pop electro opera", The Monster Ball Tour started from November 2009 and finished in May 2011. Gaga and her production team initially developed a stage that looked like a frame with the show fitted within it. The singer felt that the design would allow her creative control. Since the album dealt with the paranoias faced by Gaga over the year, the main theme of the show became evolution, with Gaga portraying growth as the show progressed. The set list consisted of songs from both "The Fame" and "The Fame Monster".


title: The Fame Monster

text: For the 2010 shows, Gaga felt that a revamp was needed as the original tour was constructed in a very short span of time. The new theme narrated a story where Gaga and her friends, traveling through New York, get lost while going to the Monster Ball. The show was divided into five segments with the last one being the encore. Each segment featured Gaga in a new dress and was followed by a video interlude to the next one. The tour grossed an estimated US$227.4 million from 200 reported shows attended by an audience of 2.5 million, making it the highest grossing trek by a debut headlining artist. A was filmed by HBO during Gaga's February 2011 shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City.


title: The Fame Monster

text: "The Fame Monster" received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, it received an average score of 78, based on 14 reviews. Sal Cinquemani from "Slant Magazine" felt that the album was not a huge leap forward for Gaga, but provided "small, if fleeting, glimpses behind the pretense." Simon Price of "The Independent" called it "a whole new piece of art in its own right." Kitty Empire from "The Observer" said that the album is "a lot more splendidly deranged" than the work of The Pussycat Dolls. "MSN Music"s Robert Christgau found it to be of "comparable quality" as "The Fame" and gave it a rating of A−, describing the tracks as "streamlined pop machines". Christgau further elaborated that "after being overwhelmed by the sheer visibility of her warp-speed relaunch did I realize how enjoyable and inescapable her hooks and snatches had turned out to be."


title: The Fame Monster

text: "NME"s Ben Patashnik described "The Fame Monster" "as pristine as you'd expect, but has a sub-zero core of isolation and fear". She went on to call the album's release as "the moment Gaga cements herself as a real star". Evan Sawdey from "PopMatters" commended Gaga for being "willing to try new things" and felt that the album shows "she's not complacent with doing the same thing over again [...] Gaga is allowed to make a few mistakes on her way towards pop nirvana—and judging what she's aiming for with "The Fame Monster", there's a good chance she's going to get there sooner than later." Mikael Wood from "Los Angeles Times" felt that "The Fame Monster" continued to demonstrate Gaga's creative ambition and stylistic range.


title: The Fame Monster

text: Jon Dolan from "Rolling Stone" called the EP "largely on point," and gave it 3.5 stars out of 5. He also said that "half the disc is Madonna knock-offs, but that's part of the concept—fame monsters needn't concern themselves with originality." Edna Gundersen from "USA Today" observed that on "The Fame Monster", "Gaga's icy aloofness and seeming aversion to a genuine human connection leave a disturbing void. With an avant-garde intellect, pop-electro eccentricities and freaky theatrics competing for attention, there's no room for heart."


title: The Fame Monster

text: Ed Power reviewed the album for Ireland's "Hot Press" magazine where he complimented Gaga's ability to "always brings her A-game" in her musical outputs. Neil McCormick from "The Daily Telegraph" commented that the album has "an irrepressible quality that is given full rein. [...] Although not as thematically integrated as the original ["The Fame"], Gaga's vivacious energy, bold melodies and almost comically relentless sensationalism keeps things interesting." Josh Modell of "Spin" gave positive feedback regarding the fast-paced songs on the record, but felt that "When Gaga reaches for sincere balladry [...] she sounds lost". Writing for "The Times", Sarah Hajibagheri criticized the album due to its "lack [of] the beat and bite that made us all go Gaga for the eccentric New Yorker".


title: The Fame Monster

text: In the United States, the individual disc of "The Fame Monster" charted at number five on the "Billboard" 200 with sales of 174,000 copies while the double disc deluxe edition, including the original "The Fame", moved up from number 34 to number 6 with sales of 151,000 copies. The album also topped the Digital Albums chart with sales of 65,000. Seven of the eight songs from the record also charted on the Hot Digital Songs chart, led by "Bad Romance" which held the top position for the second week with sales of 218,000 copies. In total Gaga had 11 songs that week charting on the Digital Songs. "The Fame Monster" topped the Dance/Electronic Albums chart, replacing "The Fame" and becoming Gaga's second number one album on the chart.


title: The Fame Monster

text: In March 2020, the album was certified quintuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of five million copies. As of February 2018, "The Fame Monster" has sold 1.65 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan. For the 2010 "Billboard" year end tabulation, "The Fame Monster" was ranked at number 13 on the "Billboard" 200 and number two on the Dance/Electronic Albums chart. In Canada, the album debuted and peaked at number six on the "Billboard" Canadian Albums Chart. It was the 23rd best selling album in the country for 2010.


title: The Fame Monster

text: In Australia, "The Fame Monster" initially charted with "The Fame", but was later considered as a standalone entry. It debuted at number 6 on the ARIA Albums Chart and in its 18th week, the record climbed to number one. It received a triple platinum certification by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipments of 210,000 copies of the album. In Japan, after being present on the Oricon Albums Chart for over 20 weeks, the album reached its peak position of number two in May 2010. By July 2011, the album had sold 548,000 copies in Japan and ranked at number 14 on the year end list for 2010.


title: The Fame Monster

text: In the United Kingdom, "The Fame Monster" was only available as a deluxe edition, not as a standalone album, hence it charted as part of "The Fame". After "The Fame Monster" release, "The Fame" moved from number 55 to number 7 on the UK Albums Chart. All the new tracks from "The Fame Monster" charted within the top 200 of the UK Singles Chart. On the week ending March 6, 2010, "The Fame" reached the top of the chart. Because of its chart activity across the European markets, "The Fame Monster" peaked at number 13 on the European Top 100 Albums chart. It was certified triple platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for shipment of three million copies across the continent.


title: The Fame Monster

text: In 2010, Gaga won the "Outstanding Music Artist" award for "The Fame Monster", during the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. The album and its songs were nominated in six categories at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. "The Fame Monster" was nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Pop Vocal Album. "Bad Romance" won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video, while "Telephone" and "Dance in the Dark" were nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and Best Dance Recording, respectively.


title: The Fame Monster

text: The album earned Best Album nominations at the 2010 International Dance Music Award and the Meteor Awards. It won the Best English Album at the Premios Oye! 2010 awards in Mexico. At the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, it earned an entry in the category for Top Electronic/Dance Album.


title: The Fame Monster

text: "Time" magazine listed "The Fame Monster" in their "Top 10 Albums of 2009" list, noting that it demonstrates "a complete understanding of what dance audiences require and vocal talent that's easy to forget underneath all that platinum hair." "Spin" ranked the album at number 197 on their list of "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years" and characterized it as Gaga's magnum opus and a "mini-masterpiece".


title: The Fame Monster

text: In 2012, "Complex" listed it at rank six on their countdown of The 50 Best Pop Album Covers of the Past Five Years. Dale Eisenger from the publication called both covers as "alluring and gorgeous", adding that Gaga's look was followed by a number of artists emulating it in later years. In 2015, "Billboard" included the standard album cover on their list of the "50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time". Andrew Unterberger from the publication wrote in a 2016 article that the cover arts were "much starker and more angular than the party-diva framing of ["The Fame"]. It's still very sleek, but there's a danger in Gaga's eyes this time out, and the feeling of greater depth in its austerity: A star, but one with a lot to say." In November 2016, "Billboard" named "The Fame Monster" Gaga's best album.


title: The Fame Monster

text: According to "Billboard", as of 2022, "The Fame Monster" is one of the 15 best-performing 21st-century albums without any of its singles being number-one hits on the "Billboard" Hot 100. With the release of "The Fame" and "The Fame Monster", Gaga was attributed to reviving electronic dance music in the late 2000s era of popular music by professional critics, DJs Tommie Sunshine and Calvin Harris, and radio personality Zane Lowe. Additionally, Andrew Unterberger of "Billboard" stated that "Gaga raised the standards for ambition in pop", concluding that she "took American mainstream music at one of its least-interesting and most star-power-deprived moments and made it bigger, weirder, more visual and infinitely more personality-driven – in other words, much more fun."


title: The Fame Monster

text: Critics acknowledged that "The Fame Monster" also had an influence on the images of pop stars, beginning a trend of wearing bizarre and outrageous outfits. Tracie Egan Morrissey from "Jezebel", said that 2011 MTV Video Music Awards's red carpet "reeks of Lady Gaga's influence" and that "ever since Lady Gaga came on the scene with her bizarre masks, tall hats and concept outfits, everyone thinks looking like an idiot on the red carpet is a sign of artistic integrity." She particular noted the effect on the attire of Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry at the show. Jon Caramanica from "The New York Times" in his article "Girl Pop's Lady Gaga Makeover" states: "It's Halloween-costume empowerment, sure, but her fingerprints are all over the revised images of Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Katy Perry and Beyoncé; and on new artists like Kesha, Janelle Monáe and Nicki Minaj" and that "the work she's done since her 2008 debut album [...] has nudged loose conventional boundaries." He then continued by saying that "If Lady Gaga has had direct impact on anyone, it's been, most surprisingly, Beyoncé, who has spent the majority of her career impervious to influence from her peers. Yet in the last year, in the wake of a pair of collaborations with Lady Gaga — "Telephone" and "Video Phone" — she appears to have come alive. The videos for those songs showed her to be far more humorous than ever before" and "it's as if Lady Gaga swooped in and infected Beyoncé with a bug, a vampiric chain of events."


title: The Fame Monster

text: In 2019, "Pitchfork" ranked the album number 151 in their "Best Albums of the 2010s" list, acknowledging that although it was officially released in November 2009, they made an exception as the album "cast such a long shadow over this decade". "The Fame Monster" placed at number 45 on "Consequence"s The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time, while at six on their Top 75 Albums of the Last 15 Years. The publication commented about its relevance since it was released, stating that the album "laid a certain groundwork for many women in pop to follow."


title: Fortified wine

text: Fortified wine is a wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy, has been added. In the course of some centuries, winemakers have developed many different styles of fortified wine, including port, sherry, madeira, Marsala, Commandaria wine, and the aromatised wine vermouth.


title: Fortified wine

text: One reason for fortifying wine was to preserve it, since ethanol is also a natural antiseptic. Even though other preservation methods now exist, fortification continues to be used because the process can add distinct flavors to the finished product.


title: Fortified wine

text: Although grape brandy is most commonly added to produce fortified wines, the additional alcohol may also be neutral spirit that has been made from grapes, grain, sugar beets or sugarcane. Regional appellation laws may dictate the types of spirit that are permitted for fortification. For example, in the U.S. only spirits made from the same fruit as the wine may be added.


title: Fortified wine

text: The source of the additional alcohol and the method of its distillation can affect the flavour of the fortified wine. If neutral spirit is used, it is usually produced with a continuous still, rather than a pot still.


title: Fortified wine

text: When added to wine before the fermentation process is complete, the alcohol in the distilled beverage kills the yeast and leaves residual sugar behind. The end result is a wine that is both sweeter and stronger, normally containing about 20% alcohol by volume (ABV).


title: Fortified wine

text: During the fermentation process, yeast cells in the "must" continue to convert sugar into alcohol until the must reaches an alcohol level of 16–18%. At this level, the alcohol becomes toxic to the yeast and stalls its metabolism. If fermentation is allowed to run to completion, the resulting wine is (in most cases) low in sugar and is considered a dry wine. Adding alcohol earlier in the fermentation process results in sweeter wine. For drier fortified wine styles, such as sherry, the alcohol is added shortly before or after the end of the fermentation.


title: Fortified wine

text: In the case of some fortified wine styles (such as late harvest and botrytized wines), a naturally high level of sugar inhibits the yeast, or the rising alcohol content due to the high sugar kills the yeast. This causes fermentation to stop before the wine can become dry.


title: Fortified wine

text: Commandaria is made in Cyprus' unique AOC region north of Limassol from high altitude vines of Mavro and Xynisteri, sun dried and aged in oak barrels. Recent developments have produced different styles of Commandaria, some of which are not fortified.


title: Fortified wine

text: Madeira is a fortified wine made in the Madeira Islands. The wine is produced in a variety of styles ranging from dry wines which can be consumed on their own as an aperitif, to sweet wines more usually consumed with dessert. Madeira is deliberately heated and oxidised as part of its maturation process, resulting in distinctive flavours and an unusually long lifespan once a bottle is opened.


title: Fortified wine

text: Marsala wine is a wine from Sicily that is available in both fortified and unfortified versions. It was first produced in 1772 by an English merchant, John Woodhouse, as an inexpensive substitute for sherry and port, and gets its name from the island's port, Marsala. The fortified version is blended with brandy to make two styles, the younger, slightly weaker "Fine", which is at least 17% abv and aged at least four months; and the "Superiore", which is at least 18%, and aged at least two years. The unfortified Marsala wine is aged in wooden casks for five years or more and reaches a strength of 18% by evaporation.


title: Fortified wine

text: Mistelle (; ; Spanish, Portuguese, Galician and , from Latin / "mix") is sometimes used as an ingredient in fortified wines, particularly Vermouth, Marsala and Sherry, though it is used mainly as a base for apéritifs such as the French Pineau des Charentes. It is produced by adding alcohol to non-fermented or partially fermented grape juice (or apple juice to make pommeau). The addition of alcohol stops the fermentation and, as a consequence Mistelle is sweeter than fully fermented grape juice in which the sugars turn to alcohol.


title: Fortified wine

text: Moscatel de Setúbal is a Portuguese wine produced around the Setúbal Municipality on the Península de Setúbal. The wine is made primarily from the Muscat of Alexandria grape and typically fortified with aguardente. The style was believed to have been invented by José Maria da Fonseca, the founder of the oldest table wine company in Portugal dating back to 1834.


title: Fortified wine

text: Port wine (also known simply as port) is a fortified wine from the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet red wine, but also comes in dry, semi-dry and white or rosé styles.


title: Fortified wine

text: Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez, Spain. The word "sherry" itself is an anglicisation of Jerez. In earlier times, sherry was known as "sack" (from the Spanish "saca", meaning "a removal from the solera"). In the European Union "sherry" is a protected designation of origin; therefore, all wine labelled as "sherry" must legally come from the Sherry Triangle, which is an area in the province of Cádiz between Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María.


title: Fortified wine

text: After fermentation is complete, sherry is fortified with brandy. Because the fortification takes place after fermentation, most sherries are initially dry, with any sweetness being added later. In contrast, port wine (for example) is fortified halfway through its fermentation, which stops the process so that not all of the sugar is turned into alcohol.


title: Fortified wine

text: Sherry is produced in a variety of styles, ranging from dry, light versions such as finos to much darker and sometimes sweeter versions known as olorosos. Cream sherry is always sweet.


title: Fortified wine

text: Vermouth is a fortified wine flavoured with aromatic herbs and spices ("aromatised" in the trade) using closely guarded recipes (trade secrets). Some of the herbs and spices used may include cardamom, cinnamon, marjoram and chamomile. Some vermouth is sweetened; however, unsweetened or dry, vermouth tends to be bitter. The person credited with the second vermouth recipe, Antonio Benedetto Carpano from Turin, Italy, chose to name his concoction "vermouth" in 1786 because he was inspired by a German wine flavoured with wormwood, an herb most famously used in distilling absinthe. However, wine flavoured with wormwood goes back to ancient Rome. The modern German word "Wermut" ("Wermuth" in the spelling of Carpano's time) means both "wormwood" and "vermouth". The herbs were originally used to mask raw flavours of cheaper wines, imparting a slightly medicinal "tonic" flavor.


title: Fortified wine

text: Vins doux naturels are lightly fortified wines typically made from white Muscat grapes or red Grenache grapes in the south of France. The production of vins doux naturels was perfected by Arnaud de Villeneuve at the University of Montpellier in the 13th century and they are now quite common in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France.


title: Fortified wine

text: As the name suggests, Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, Muscat de Rivesaltes and Muscat de Frontignan are all made from the white Muscat grape, whilst Banyuls and Maury are made from red Grenache. Other wines, like those of Rivesaltes AOC, can be made from red or white grapes. Regardless of the grape, fermentation is stopped by the addition of up to 10% of a 190 proof (95%) grape spirit. The Grenache vins doux naturels can be made in an oxidised or unoxidised style whereas the Muscat wines are protected from oxidation to retain their freshness.


title: Fortified wine

text: Inexpensive fortified wines, such as Thunderbird and Wild Irish Rose, became popular during the Great Depression for their relatively high alcohol content. The term "wino" was coined during this period to describe impoverished alcoholics of the time.


title: Fortified wine

text: These wines continue to be associated with the homeless, mainly because marketers have been aggressive in targeting low-income communities as ideal consumers of these beverages; organisations in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland have urged makers of inexpensive fortified wine, including E & J Gallo Winery, to stop providing such products to liquor stores in impoverished areas. In 2005, the Seattle City Council asked the Washington State Liquor Control Board to prohibit the sale of certain alcohol products in an impoverished "Alcohol Impact Area." Among the products sought to be banned were over two dozen beers, and six fortified wines: Cisco, Gino's Premium Blend, MD 20/20, Night Train, Thunderbird, and Wild Irish Rose. The Liquor Control Board approved these restrictions on August 30, 2006.


title: Fortified wine

text: Although rice wine is not made from grapes, it has a similar alcohol content to grape wine, and the addition of the distilled spirit, soju, and other ingredients like ginseng, jujubes, ginger, etc., to the rice wine, bears similarity to the above-mentioned fortified wines.


title: Fortified wine

text: Fortified wines are often termed dessert wines in the United States to avoid association with hard drinking. The term "vins de liqueur" is used by the French.


title: Fortified wine

text: Under European Union legislation, a liqueur wine is a fortified wine that contains 15–22% abv, with Total Alcoholic Strength no less than 17.5%, and that meets many additional criteria. Exemptions are allowed for certain quality liqueur wines.


title: Dollar General

text: Dollar General Corporation is an American chain of variety stores headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. As of April 11, 2022, Dollar General operates 18,216 stores in the continental United States.


title: Dollar General

text: The company began in 1939 as a family-owned business called J.L. Turner and Son in Scottsville, Kentucky, owned by James Luther Turner and Cal Turner. In 1955, the name changed to Dollar General Corporation and in 1968 the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Fortune 500 recognized Dollar General in 1999 and in 2020 reached #112. Dollar General has grown to become one of the most profitable stores in the rural United States with revenue reaching around $27 billion in 2019.


title: Dollar General

text: Dollar General has its origin in Scottsville, Kentucky, with James Luther "J.L." Turner and his son Cal Turner. James Turner's father died in an accident in 1902 when James was only 11. James quit school to work on the family farm, helping to provide for his mother and siblings, and subsequently never completed his education. After two unsuccessful attempts at retailing, James became a traveling dry goods salesman for a Nashville wholesale grocer. James left the sales job after 10 years and settled his family in Scottsville, Kentucky. During the Great Depression, he began buying and liquidating bankrupt general stores. James' only child Cal Turner accompanied his father to these closeouts at a young age, gaining valuable business knowledge and skills.


title: Dollar General

text: In October 1939, James and Cal opened J.L. Turner and Son with an initial investment of $5,000 each. The switch to retailing resulted in annual sales above $2 million by the early 1950s. By the mid-1950s Turner had 35 department stores in Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1955, Cal Turner developed his idea of a retail store selling goods for a dollar, based on the Dollar Days promotions held at other department stores, by converting Turner's Department Store in Springfield, Kentucky, into the first Dollar General Store. In 1964 J.L. Turner died leaving his son Cal Turner to succeed him.


title: Dollar General

text: The company Cal Turner co-founded went public as Dollar General Corporation in 1968, posting annual sales of more than $40 million and net income in excess of $1.5 million. In 1977, Cal Turner, Jr., who joined the company in 1965 as the third generation Turner, succeeded his father as president of Dollar General. Cal Jr. led the company until his retirement in 2002. Under his leadership, the company grew to more than 6,000 stores and $6 billion in sales. In 1997 a distribution center was established in South Boston, Virginia.


title: Dollar General

text: In 2000, Dollar General opened a new corporate headquarters in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. By the end of 2000, sales at Dollar General exceeded $4 billion. The distribution center in Homerville, Georgia, was closed in April 2000 and operations were moved to a new distribution center in Alachua, Florida.


title: Dollar General

text: Dollar General entered the grocery market with the establishment of Dollar General Market in 2003. In 2004, Dollar General expanded to low-cost Asian markets by opening a sourcing office in Hong Kong.